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AMERICA IN FRANCE 



BOOKS BY FREDERICK PALMER 

Going to War in Greece 

The Ways of the Service 

The Vagabond 

With Kuroki in Manchuria 

Over the Pass 

The Last Shot 

My Year of the Great War 

The Old Blood 

My Second Year of the War 

With Our Faces in the Light 

America in France 



AMERICA IN FRANCE 



BY 
MAJOR FREDERICK PALMER 

Author of " The Last Shot," " My Year of the Great War,' 
" With Our Faces in the Light," etc. 




NEW YORK 
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1918 



J-.^" 

^^^ 



Copyright, 191S, 
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. 



'«£)CI.A5()«765 



^^4 



THE MEMORY OF OUR SOLDIERS WHO 
HAVE FALLEN IN FRANCE IN ORDER 
THAT THEIR COMRADES WHO SUR- 
VIVE MAY MAKE A BETTER WORLD 



TO THE READER 

Upon our entry into the war, I became one of the 
band of reserve officers who might do special service 
while they envied the men of the training camps 
their youth. My duties allowed me a wide range 
of information and observation with our expedition- 
ary force in France from its inception. Under the 
spell of our marvelous achievement, which is the 
greatest story any American has ever had to tell, I 
have written about it as I knew it through its phases 
of building, training, figljiting and of unremitting 
effort until we had won the Saint Mihiel salient and 
broken the old German line in the Argonne battle. 
Readers of My Year of the Great War and My 
Second Year of the War will have between two 
covers, if they choose, my third and fourth years. 

Frederick Palmer, 
Major, S.C., U.S.J. 





CONTENTS 




CHAPTER 
I 


Pershing Goes to France . 


PAGE 
I 


II 


Our Great Project 


II 


III 


The First Troops Arrive . 


22 


IV 


They Go to Lorraine . 


• 31 


V 


Hard Training . 


43 


VI 


A Blue Print Era 


56 


VII 


Many Problems 


66 


VIII 


Building an Organization . 


11 


IX 


Faith in the Rifle 


94 


X 


Some Firsts for the First . 


106 


XI 


Three More Divisions 


121 


XII 


Pulling Upstream 


138 


XIII 


The Other " Over There " . 


155 


XIV 


The Secretary Comes . 


166 


XV 


Everyday Fighting 


182 


XVI 


All We Have .... 


199 


XVII 


Our First Offensive . 


211 


XVIII 


A Call from the Marne . 


229 


XIX 


Holding the Paris Road . 


242 


XX 


Belleau Wood and Vaux . 


252 



CONTENTS 



XXI Wounded and Prisoners . 

XXII Divisions with the English 

XXIII Our Army Travels . 

XXIV Busy Days for the C.-in-C. 
XXV Resolute Stonewalling . 

XXVI We Strike Back . 

XXVII Driving Toward Soissons . 

XXVIII Vierzy and Berzy-le-Sec . 

XXIX Forward from Chateau-Thi 

frry 

XXX The Heights of the Ourcq 

XXXI To THE Vesle 

XXXII Saint Mihiel 

XXXIII We Take the Salient 

XXXIV Our Argon ne Battle 
XXXV Aviation .... 

XXXVI The Great Project Realized 



280 

293 
301 

3-9 
340 
360 

371 
3S5 
400 
414 
42S 
441 

455 
467 



AMERICA IN FRANCE 



AMERICA IN FRANCE 



PERSHING GOES TO FRANCE 

General Pershing at the War Department — Commander of the 
American Expeditionary Forces — Modest beginnings of our 
greatest national enterprise — Specialists in war take com- 
mand — 'The American crusader — Difficult even for the French 
to understand our distinterestedness — General Pershing and 
his staff sail from New York — Beginning staff work on ship- 
board — An American General reviews British troops — Ova- 
tions in Paris — The real General Pershing. 

It was In the May days of our early war emotion 
and war effort, after public Imagination had re- 
sponded to Marshal Joffre's call for American 
troops to fight beside his veterans. Long lines of 
private cars waited on the sidings of the Union Sta- 
tion in Washington while their owners were seeking 
to serve the government for a dollar a year. The 
word coordination had not yet become the bandied 
symbol of the thing most needed and most desired 
in harnessing the Niagara of our national energy 
into voltage. 

Anyone passing along the corridors of the War 
Department who looked Into the small room oppo- 
site the Chief of Staff's office might have taken the 
Major General and other officers within as engaged 
in some routine departmental work unless he had 



2 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

heard someone remark: " Pershing is in there, get- 
ting ready to go to France." Such was the begin- 
ning, in a quiet office, isolated from the throbbing 
activity of Washington, of our greatest adventure 
in arms and our greatest national enterprise; and 
the modesty of it was in keeping with the lack of any 
large body of troops to send to Europe or the ships 
for their transport. 

Our public did not then conceive of a complete 
Russian military collapse, let alone a German of- 
fensive sweeping over the devastated areas of the 
Somme which the Allies had lately won. Joffre's 
candid message about the situation had not dis- 
turbed the serene conviction of many Americans that 
our weight in the balance would drop the scales of 
victory for the Allies. He was the commander of 
trained armies born of military traditions imbibed 
through generations in face of the enemy's frontier. 
We were a people who had built fortunes and vast 
enterprises, homes, schools and universities, con- 
quered wildernesses, taken riches out of the earth 
and set deserts abloom, but with the traditions of 
eight years of fighting which had made us a nation 
and of the fratricidal conflict in which our manhood 
had proved its fortitude and courage as a reminder 
to later generations, emigrants or home born, of 
what should be expected of them if they were to be 
worthy of our inheritance In some future trial. In 
t86i, few men foresaw the great armies which we 
should have to raise before a decision was reached. 
In May, 19 17, no one thought of an army of a 
million men in France except in the imaginative 
flights which were the privilege of all in that period. 



PERSHING GOES TO FRANCE 3 

When you are ill you turn to the doctor. When 
you are at war you turn to the trained soldier. It 
is as easy to forget the one when you are well as 
to forget the other in time of peace. Although we 
were at war uniforms were rarely seen in our streets. 
In the training camps chosen young men were learn- 
ing the rudiments of drill in order to become officers 
who should train troops to go to France under 
Pershing. 

Our regular army had hardly been a part of our 
national life; it was a supplementary official neces- 
sity which we accepted along with our taxes. Sud- 
denly, the man trained in war had become the man 
of the hour; " he is a regular," the tribute to a type 
of professional specialism which made the owner of 
a private car envious. Upon the way that our little 
band of experts molded the raw material of our 
manhood and organized our resources in their sup- 
port depended the result of our effort, a thought that 
will be running through all these pages, which deal 
with the triumph of men as men and how they were 
undismayed when they lacked resources and how 
they utilized the resources which were forthcoming. 

In the Washington hotel lobbies, where the expert 
in railroad building and the expert in steel-making 
each respected specialism, it was only incidental to 
our traditions that they should think that an army 
was a force of armed men without considering how 
it was organized and directed. They lived in an- 
other world from that of the officers of our General 
Staff in the rooms along the corridors from where 
Pershing had begun his organization. You thought 
of the large, technically trained, experienced staffs 



4 AMERICA IX FRANXE 

of our large corporations in comparison with the 
meager personnel which was to organize an in- 
finitely larger corporation, whose ledger account is 
reckoned in casualties in battle. These officers had 
no illusions; they understood how, in cold logic, the 
German Staft had reasoned that ruthless submarine 
warfare against Britain would gain results more 
than oftsetting any force which we might bring 
against Germany before she planned to win a de- 
cision at arms. For war is a soldier's business, and 
our soldiers realized the immensity and the com- 
plicated difficulties of Pershing's task. 

Given time and they did not lack faith in the out- 
come. To have lacked faith would have been un- 
American and shown their inappreciation of the 
forces that built our skyscrapers, our factories, 
our colleges and the spirit of our democracy and 
our cause. It would be confessing distrust in 
American manhood drilling at the training camps, 
!U themselves and their own progranmie; as. hap- 
pily, in this war we had taken expert adWce. We 
were to have a national draft: specialists in war 
were to be given the authority to form an army 
along sound professional lines. The architect's 
plans for the structure were right: the thing now 
was the building. If Joffre were a marshal of 
accomplishment, Pershing was a marshal of poten- 
tialities. 

The instructions which the General received be- 
fore he left the little room to sail were of an his- 
toric simplicit\\ He was to proceed with his staff 
to Europe, there " to command all the land forces 
of the United States operating in continental Europe 



PERSHING GOES TO FRANCE 5 

Slid in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and 
Ireland," and to " establish, after consultation with 
the French War Oflice, all necessary bases, lines of 
communication, etc., and make all the incidental 
iirrangements essential to active participation at the 
front." 

Back of this charter of authority were all the 
principles that the President had enunciated in his 
messages. These are none the less live and true for 
iteration. They have been the inspiration of all 
our effort in France. No crusader of old went forth 
with a cause freer from guile than the American 
born of European blood returning to fight in Eu- 
rope a battle which cemented a kinship of right in 
the world, after we had kept faith with our peaceful 
intentions by not preparing great armaments. 

Often the French villagers asked our soldiers : 
"Why are you here? What do you want? Is it 
colonies? Is it power in the affairs of Europe?" 
The questions were natural from races rooted in 
their soil, with its defense their instinctive self- 
interest. Through all the months of labor in France 
the wonder of our being in France never ceased 
when thoughts took a certain turn. When they took 
another, the answer was, " Where else should we 
be? " Our troops would return with no tribute from 
victory; with only national consciences clear. 

When and on what ship was Pershing going? 
Curiosity pried at the curtain of military secrecy. 
Men occupying rooms in the War Department ad- 
joining the General's did not know, but the hotel 
lobbies knew. The embarkation was matter-of-fact 
enough from a government tender to the S. S. Baltic 



6 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

in a May rain off Staten Island; and the next day 
the staff went to work — Commander, Chief of Staff, 
and other staff heads, and all Colonels, Majors, 
Captains, Lieutenants, interpreters and field clerks, 
orderlies and messengers — one hundred and fifty in 
all. A few were reservists who had jumped into 
their uniforms before sailing and were uncertain 
whether you saluted superiors on shipboard or not. 
Others wore the colors of campaigns in Cuba, the 
Philippines and China, and a few the red ribbon 
that indicated an Indian campaign, which were to 
mingle with the colors of South Africa and India, 
of Madagascar and Morocco, and those of the 
Military Cross, the D. S. O., the Croix de Guerre 
and Medaille MUita'ire. We were proud of our 
one handsome gray-haired officer who had won the 
Medal of Honor from Congress and ready to com- 
pare him with any winner of the Victoria Cross, 

Many of the officers had never been in Europe. 
Their knowledge of the European war was gained 
from the reports of our military observers and 
general reading. Late in the third year of the war 
they were going abroad as leaders who were to 
apply the experience of Europe's masters to their 
own army. Anyone who expected that their attitude, 
In keeping with our generally accepted characteristic 
of self-assertion, would be that they proposed to 
*' show Europe how " reckoned without the consid- 
eration that their professional training warned them 
that they had much to learn. 

Oh, those classes in French ! The interpreters 
organized the officers into groups of different grades, 
from those well-grounded in West Point book 



PERSHING GOES TO FRANCE 7 

French to the ones who did not know how to ask 
the way or for something to eat, while arms sore 
from vaccination, and too much experience with 
Spanish on the border were offered as excuses for 
not immediately acquiring a Parisian accent. Gen- 
eral Pershing was in the first grade; he had once 
studied French in France. Lectures on bombing and 
sanitation were delivered in the dining saloon to fill 
in any spare time when an idler might have been 
playing shuffleboard. 

The American destroyers, which came out to es- 
cort us at the edge of the submarine zone, were a 
reminder that the service which is always ready for 
action in the ships which It has and the crews to 
man them was striking the only battle blows which 
we had yet delivered at the enemy. Without de- 
stroyer protection there would be no American army 
in Europe. Ever, the destroyer, weaving its watch- 
ful course of guardianship In all weathers, will 
remain the symbol of a devout gratitude to all men 
who have crossed the Atlantic in this war. Its sight 
Is as welcome as that of a policeman if you have 
a burglar In the house. 

When the General reviewed the Guard of Honor 
on the pier at Liverpool, of course someone said, 
" This Is historic." History had been too abun- 
(Irintly in the making of late years for one to be 
certain of values; yet It was a great moment when 
^.•e leader of an American army come to fight beside 
;>ritlsh soldiers stepped ashore on English soil. It 
was the more Important as there was no ceremony 
in London except an audience by the King, much 
to the relief of our little band of pioneers, which 



8 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

was off to the War Office where each one was to 
meet some expert In his own line, with no lessening 
of his conviction of what a lot he had to learn. 

In France, however, there must be ceremony. 
Why had Joffre asked for the prompt dispatch of 
troops? For the immediate effect on French morale. 
Therefore, France refused to consider the modesty 
of a simple American soldier who wished particu- 
larly to avoid martial display when he was bringing 
only a staff to Europe. She needed the stimulus of 
the actuality of American soldiers on her soil, which 
was more convincing proof that we were in this war 
in earnest than ten thousand columns of cablegrams 
( about our preparations at home. Ovations were the 
\ spontaneous outcome of Parisian feeling which 
', should communicate its reassuring thrill to every 
' village from Brittany to the Alps. General La- 
fayette's fame resplendently revived. The French 
schoolboy was learning as much about him as about 
the American. He had gone to America to help 
us; Pershing came to France to help the French. 

Not since the war had begun had the Parisian 
spirit, stilled to breathless silence in the days of the 
Marne, breathing free again in relief after the 
victory, and restrained ever since by the drain of 
life and the pressure of the grim monotonous proc- 
esses of sacrifice, broken forth In a manner worthy 
of welcoming a marshal returning from decisive 
victory. Our officers had no idea of what was in 
store for them. They were as embarrassed as girl 
graduates when, on the way from the station, the 
crowds surrounded their cars and threw flowers at 
them. 



PERSHING GOES TO FRANCE 9 

*' Look pleasant, please \ " called an American to 
a colonel. 

" Only then," said the colonel, " did I realize that 
I was sitting as stiff as a wooden Indian and looking 
as serious as a Puritan at the benediction — it was so 
staggering to be a hero of Paris." 

Our General found himself bowing from balconies 
to cheering multitudes and the recipient of atten- 
tions which were once reserved for visiting mon- 
archs. Fortunately, he had traveled much and 
studiously and met all manner of men. Within the 
army the distinction among his fellows which he 
had already won before he left West Point gave 
him the opportunities of varied service which 
ranged from the General Staff in Washington to 
building roads and schools in the jungle and ruling 
the Moros, who called him " Datto," followed by 
eleven years of command experience. He had been 
of the group of attaches with Kuroki's army in 
Manchuria who were the eyes of the armies of the 
world in observing the first great war fought with 
modern arms. There I first knew him and Captain 
Peyton C. March, who later became our Chief of 
Staff. Colonel Enoch H. Crowder, who was our 
senior attache, was to be responsible for our Na- 
tional Draft, as Provost Marshal General. The 
others included Sir Ian Hamilton, who led the Gal- 
lipoli expedition; Captain von Etzel, who was to 
command a German corps at Verdun; Colonel 
Corvissart, who was to command a corps opposite 
von Etzel's; Captain Hoffman, very guttural and 
very Prussian, who became the representative of 
the German Staff at the Brest-Litovsk Peace Con- 



lo AMERICA IN FRANCE 

ference and engineered the collapse of Russia; and 
Captain Caviglia, who was to distinguish himself as 
an army commander in the battle of the Piave. 

We were to have, then, as our leader in France 
a man thoroughly trained for his task since the day 
he left Missouri to go to West Point, intrinsically 
^J^erican, and representative of our institutions. 
No soldier could have criticized his speeches for 
length and no diplomat for lack of appreciation of 
his position as the ambassador of the hundred mil- 
lions. France looked him over, and liked his firm 
jaw, his smile, his straight figure and his straight 
way of looking at everyone he met. He brought 
cheer and promise of the only aid which France 
'•.ould understand, that of an armed force which 
fights on land. For France is of the soil and vine- 
yards and well-tilled fields and thrifty peasants, and 
thinks little of the sea. 

Our oflficers remarked with dry American humor 
that they were receiving all the honors due immortal 
heroism before they had done any fighting. The 
realization of the long months of waiting before we 
should have troops ready to go into the line put the 
double edge to their appreciation of the welcome by 
thoughtful Americans in the midst of the cheers. 



II 

OUR GREAT PROJECT 

First American uniforms in Paris — Modest headquarters on the 
Rue de Constantine — Where all Americans in Paris flocked — 
Crowded quarters — Difficulties of making a start — Laying 
plans for a great army — Where should our soldiers fight, 
train, disembark? — Our national characteristic of thinking 
" big." 

Other pioneers had been in France In behalf of the 
AUIed cause before our staff. We had given freely 
of our money and effort. Our doctors and nurses 
manned hospitals that we had equipped. The fliers 
of the Lafayette Escadrllle were a little legion of 
American chivalry fighting in the air; and hundreds 
of drivers of the two American ambulance associa- 
tions coursed the roads back of the French front. 

They wore uniforms which distinguished them as 
Americans and they carried our flag In spirit or by 
courtesy, but their uniforms did not have U. S. on 
the collar and the flag was not official. The uni- 
forms now seen in the streets were official; and the 
authority of the nation raised the flag at the new 
army headquarters In Paris, which, in its magic sym- 
bolism that where formerly some Americans had 
been striking Germany, now all were, was the 
harbinger of American flags appearing in the re- 
motest corners of France; of busy hours for needle- 
women who were sewing the stars of the States, 



12 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

while the Red, White and Blue of their own tri-color 
made the stripes and the field of ours. 

The modesty of the premises which the staff occu- 
pied in Paris was in keeping with the modesty of the 
beginnings in Washington. Instead of taking pal- 
aces or hotels on the Champs-Elysees, the officer 
who had the arrangements in charge sought the 
other side of the Seine, where he took two private 
houses in the Rue de Constantine overlooking the 
Invalides, as if the one thing that the A. E. F. 
wished to do after the furore of its Parisian recep- 
tion was to escape further publicity. 

In the corner house, No. 31, General Pershing 
settled down in his office, which was the corner room 
upstairs, and began his service in France. In the 
adjoining room the Chief of Staff had his desk and 
in the one on the other side the aides had theirs. 
The atmosphere of the aides' room was more like 
that of a political candidate's anteroom than an army 
headquarters. Every American in Paris seemed to 
have some reason for calling. Why not? For three 
years he had longed for the day when he could hold 
up his head with the thought that his country was 
in the war. Usually, he considered it necessary to 
see the General in person. 

At first, an orderly tried to hold the wooden gate 
which was put up as a check at the foot of the stairs, 
where, in other days, a servant had opened the door 
for callers and to receive cards. The orderly had 
learned some fortitude in Mexico, but quailed nnd 
yielded before this onslaught. An officer, a gallant 
and polite gentleman who could alternate his attitude 
between that of a diplomatic usher and a traffic 



OUR GREAT PROJECT 13 

policeman, took his place. While he was consider- 
ing the application of one caller, others would slip 
by him to advance on the General's aides. 

It was amazing the number of people the General 
saw; amazing how any work was done in the limited 
space of No. 31. Young America in France wanted 
commissions in the army; old America in France had 
advice to offer; the pressure on the War Department 
v/as repeated in Paris. The small room over the 
stairs held a group of French officers who were the 
intermediaries, the liaison, in all the relations of the 
pioneers with the official world of France, arranging 
for the innumerable conferences required for co- 
operation with the French, when necessarily all our 
action was related to French military policy. 

In other parts of the building the rest of the staff 
overflowed kitchens, bedrooms and butler's pantry. 
Two or three officers occupied the same desk at the 
".ame time. A captain who thought that he had a 
desk of his own, when he left it for half an hour 
found his papers pushed to one side and a major in 
his place when he returned. A score or more of 
newspaper correspondents called every day in answer 
to the eager curiosity of the people at home. 

There was relief from the congestion when the 
Quartermaster's Department and other branches 
moved Into the Hotel St. Anne, Rue St. Anne, where 
desks took the place of bedsteads, while everybody 
there as at the Rue de Constantlne was on the jump 
with a French Interpreter at his elbow. Loss of 
motion for the want of supplies because of the limi- 
tations of army forms and of lack of knowledge of 
the language, was an Inevitable affliction to a staff 



14 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

which In answer to a hurry call had rushed across 
the Atlantic. Our personnel, which might have 
seemed large in Washington, became ridiculously 
small in the theater of the European war. Hun- 
dreds of problems buffeted and laid siege to the 
pioneers, who were trying to familiarize themselves 
with conditions at the same time that they organized 
for immediate future requirements. Each branch 
must lay out its programme and these programmes 
must be combined into a whole. 

For the first time the military secrets of the Allies 
were open to us. Officers of the Operations Section 
could look into every detail of the operations of the 
French and British armies, familiarizing themselves 
with the infernally complicated system of tactics of 
trench warfare. They could sit in a battalion com- 
mander's post of commandment or at corps head- 
quarters and watch the routine of command. The 
Medical Corps, without supplies, could observe the 
care of the wounded, from the stretcher-bearers to 
the base hospitals. The signal corps, without sup- 
plies, might follow the many strands of wire along 
the walls of a single communication trench and gain 
some idea of the material for communications which 
our army would require. Officers of the Intelligence 
Section could stretch their imagination as to forces 
needed by meeting the company of experts at a 
Grand Headquarters — experts in language, in ques- 
tioning prisoners, in censorship, in counter-espionage, 
in all the business of keeping information from the 
enemy and gaining information about him. As for 
the Quartermaster, reserve the bulk of your sym- 
pathy for him. Everybody seemed to want some- 



OUR GREAT PROJECT 15 

thing from him which he could not supply, when 
he had brought no more baggage to Europe than 
any other staff officer. He might buy what he 
could in the open market, and bid those who 
wrote " It is requested " to wait until our trans- 
ports arrived. 

In any army the inspiration of action comes from 
its leader. His decision is final, upon the advice 
of his generals and his staff. He links all the strands 
together under his driving hand; he is the ultimate 
authority in the provision of any programme next 
to that of the Secretary of War and the President. 
In the days when submarine ravages were heavy, 
when our armies were in the making, when Russia 
was still in the war and British confidence high after 
the perfect " limited-objective " battle of Messines, 
when many people thought that peace would arrive 
in another six months, and when our camps at home 
were still busy with the primer lessons of soldiering. 
General Pershing laid his plans for the patient build- 
ing of a great, thorough army organization in France 
and an adequate plant to maintain it. Time was to 
justify his vision, as time more than justified 
Kitchener's vision of a three years' war. 

Where should an American force go into the 
line? Where should it be trained in France? The 
bases established for its maintenance must be more 
or less permanent, as a modern army is tied fast to 
its source of supply. What ports were we to use? 
Harbor space was a first consideration, for we must 
have ample gateways for an ample enterprise. 

The question of training brought up the problems 
where errors may be most glaringly costly; the 



i6 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

preparation of soldiers for the test of battle. Dif- 
ference of systems, variation of ideas, national 
psychology and changing political and military con- 
ditions all played a part. It will be recollected that 
the French Staff had strongly advocated, early in the 
war, not only the introduction of French Staff con- 
trol into British units, but even the introduction of 
British battahons into French regiments, for the 
reason that the French Staff was experienced in the 
handling of large bodies of troops and had ample 
reserves in trained officers, owing to the application 
of military training to all classes of French man- 
hood for two generations. The British could not 
accept this view, even if the military advantage were 
granted, owing to causes inherent in pride of coun- 
try and in the traditions of a self-reliant people. 

It was only natural that the French should want 
to apply the same system to us and that the British 
should consider that the bond of com.mon language 
alone was the unanswerable argument that we 
should train with them. Either of two gallant hosts 
begged us to become a member of his family. It was 
only human that the British master and the French 
master should want the American as his disciple; 
a proof of either's faith in himself and his system. 
Each one wanted the privilege of instructing the 
novice, the giant beginner; of exerting his influence 
upon the young nation from over the seas which 
was bringing its legions to bear for the first time 
in an European war, in violation of Washington's 
policy for a struggling infant now become of ele- 
phantine strength. 

Full compliance with the request of either side 



OUR GREAT PROJECT 17 

that our troops should be introduced into its army 
in small units might mean that we should have no 
distinct staff, or bases, or lines of communication, 
while our training camps at home became recruiting 
depots for British and French forces. In that event, 
would the most important unit of war, the man in 
the ranks, develop the maximum of power against 
the enemy when he was not a part of a distinct 
American army? It is a question which will recur 
again; a question which sinks the plummet deep 
in human psychology and in our part in the war. 
Our live national sympathy for France, the needs 
of French morale and many other considerations 
associated us with the French army, while instruc- 
tions and wisdom kept our forces integral under 
the tutelage of the French, who generously offered 
their best officers and troops as our teachers. 

Nature was niggardly in supplying western 
France with large harbors; and her harbor masters 
;iever contemplated such an enterprise as ours de- 
manding anchorage and wharf space. The value of 
New York Bay and the piers of the North River 
transferred to a point between Boulogne and Bor- 
deaux is something beyond conjecture. Already the . 
British occupied the northern ports in maintaining 
their replacements, in feeding their immense army, 
in caring for their wounded, in supplying all the 
material for the offensive which they were con- 
ducting. 

We must turn to other harbors not already occu- 
pied. If there were not enough piers we must 
build them. If there was not enough anchorage 
space we must dredge it. The officers who were 



i8 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

dashing about France in the company of French 
officers, going over French reports and suggestions, 
were dreaming great dreams as the pleasant land- 
scape whisked by — dreams of forming the plan 
which was to be the basis of all our future effort 
in France and our effort at home in preparing for 
war in France. 

I know of nothing more in keeping with our na- 
tional character of seeing " big " and thinking 
" big " than the visions which we put into cold 
official recommendations when the submarine rav- 
ages were at their worst and we had no illusions 
about the supply of American shipping for transport. 
A year later, with a deep understanding of their 
foresight, we could the better appreciate how of- 
ficers who had been dealing with companies of 
infantry and supplies for the Mexican border ex- 
panded their conception to our needs in France. It 
was not for them to consider that the sudden end 
of the war would stop their building. They had 
seen enough to know that Germany was far from 
beaten, and they proposed to prepare a force which 
should be equal to our part in assisting the Allies 
to compass her defeat. 

*' Any consideration of operations," said the 
recommendations to Washington, " must include of- 
^.cnsive operations on a large scale, which would 
oquire twenty combat divisions for action." These 
"id all the personnel of supply necessary to support 
> lem, after studying the French and the British 
systems, "must look toward a million men, the 
smallest unit which, in modern war, will be a com- 
plete fighting organization." At home, the plan 



-^ OUR GREAT PROJECT 19 

should contemplate the completion in two years of 
a programme for three million men. 

The officers in the crowded rooms in the Rue de 
Constantine, when we had not two platoons of in- 
fantry or a single gun in France, having outlined 
their project for the millions as an indication of 
what was expected of Washington, then worked out 
their tables of organization and their system for re- 
placement, and the difterent types of schools required 
in France and in the States to teach officers of our 
new army not yet commissioned and soldiers not yet 
in uniform the latest technique in every branch. 

There, within a stone's throw of the Invalides 
and in sight of Napoleon's tomb, these men of from 
thirty-five to forty-five years of age of our little 
General Staff, with the help of sober field clerks 
who ran the typewriters, created armies out of the 
youths still walking our streets, transferred them 
across the Atlantic, marched them and fought them 
against the Kaiser's armies, not in War College 
theory, but in abundant conviction that their proj- 
ects could be realized. A von Tirpitz or a Ludcn- 
dorff, looking over their shoulders, might have said, 
'* You may as well imagine you are playing ball 
with the stars." But Napoleon, who had created 
armies out of republican crowds, could have said, 
" I, too, dreamed." Whatever Napoleon come to 
life might think, aren't we the people who lay out 
the streets of a town across the fields and name 
them all before a house is built? How old is 
Chicago? How long since Kansas City was a trad- 
ing post? 

We must not only have ports, but great ware- 



20 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

houses, depots and regulating stations — everything 
across the Atlantic that the British had across the 
Channel. In conference with the French, we studied 
the map of France as railroad builders and town 
builders had studied the geography and the resources 
of the West. Instead of pioneering in a new coun- 
try with everything at hand for building, we v/ere to 
pioneer in an old land, whose resources were under 
the strain of war. Were we to fight in France, we 
must bring our own supplies with us and in our own 
transport as surely as the Forty-Niners had to bring 
theirs. 

With the size of the army contemplated in a given 
time known, we could prepare for its requirements 
in a given time. With the sector of the front we 
were to occupy known, officers could go about say- 
ing with an Aladdin confidence, " Here is where 
we shall build a twenty-thousand-ton cold storage 
plant " and " there we must have warehouses to 
accommodate a million tons." The southern At- 
lantic ports of France and the railways of Central 
France and the free swing with plenty of room 
which we should require for our national effort, 
combined to locate our future theater of action be- 
tween Verdun and the Swiss border, with the possi- 
bility of turning further northward from Central 
France as an axis in case of emergency. A people 
used to distances, we were set a problem in dis- 
tances, after our troops and supplies were landed, 
farther than from London to the Somme battle 
front. Our lines of communication were to stretch 
clear across France to the hills and valleys of Lor- 
raine, facing the Alsace-Lorraine of French desire. 



OUR GREAT PROJECT 21 

Of all the cablegrams, ever increasing in volume 
from the days of meagerness in June, 19 17, which 
have passed between " Agwar " and " Pershing, 
Amexforce," none of these better expressed the 
" make-it-brief " spirit than that of July ist, in which 
the whole plan for our operations was outlined to 
the War Department, which might well have been 
stunned when it thought of all that had to be done 
to carry out the gigantic conception. These thou- 
sands of pages of cablegrams are a skeleton history 
of the expedition which recollection makes live with 
the tired muscles of soldiers in training, the heart 
of determination and the nerves quivering under 
strain held in leash by will and the spirit that con- 
quers obstacles. 



V 



Ill 



THE FIRST TROOPS ARRIVE 

Building for an army of millions — The first convoy — The first 
American troops unlike any soKiicrs France had ever seen — 
Emotions of an American watdiing his own troops arriving 
in France — Surprising variety of Americans in the first con- 
tingent — Cu-neral I'ershing pays a visit to see his boys ilis- 
emliark — The First nivisit)n — I'verything to do to transform 
gretii recruits into traineil soldiers. 

Until troops arrived, the Staff woiiUl have tlie feel- 
ino; of a head witliout a body; of a delegation rather 
than of an army. It awaited impatiently the coming 
of the di\ision of re<>ulars which was to follow Gen- 
eral Pershing to France and witli some curiosity as 
to- its character. 

Already the expansion of our regular regiments 
had left one trained man tt) stiffen and educate three 
. ocruits. Pride would Ikuc skimmed the best of- 
I cers and men from several divisions in order to 
nake a good showing abroad; and ettect would have 
demanded that the large cities of France should have 
a glimpse of their veteran precision. We might 
have even rushed over two such di\isions. 

A different view, which prevailed in profit of 

British experience, had in mind how the flower of 

the British army went to the sacrifice at Mons at 

jJie expense of instructors for the future new British 

army. Our regular army, at the beginning of 1917, 



THE FIRST TROOPS ARRIVE 23 

was even smaller than the British in 19 14, while 
our man-power was more than double that of the 
British Isles. As the Germans were then held on 
all fronts, no emergency, then in sight, required any 
such concentration of our best available troops of 
the kind which hurried Sir John French's army 
against the German advance through Belgium. 

Thus, we could safeguard our own experts for 
school-mastering. Although they might long to be 
among the " first in France," we distributed them 
among the new divisions which were forming at 
home, in order to develop an army of that uniform 
quality necessary to a commander's confident han- 
dling in action. One or two or three crack divisions, 
selected at the expense of the others, would have 
been earlier in the trenches than a recruit division, 
but they would have a long wait before they were 
reinforced by other trained divisions. Indeed, we 
should have had a small corps d' elite in France and 
a large military mob at home. 

Those bold young staff officers, working out their 
ambitious projects on paper in the Rue de Con- 
stantine, approved this decision. It fitted in with 
the splendid theory of building according to their 
professional ideals. They kept right on thinking in 
terms of millions as if from the force of habit. 
When they thought of effect it was military effect. 
The display of a crack division might thrill the Al- 
lies with the idea that we were impressing Germany, 
when the one authority to be impressed was the 
German Staff, which was watching to see whether 
or not America meant to make a real army of a size 
commensurate with her population and resources. 



24 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

If anything ought to be kept a secret it should be 
the port of debarkation of the first American force 
to pass through the submarine zone, and the time of 
its arrrv^al. The navy, which had the responsibiHty 
of safe conduct, was not lacking in self-consciousness 
in this respect. 

Meanwhile, we had to make preparations for re- 
ceiving the troops at some particular port. The 
more mysterious the French and the American of- 
ficers delegated to the task appeared the more they 
confirmed the purpose of their presence. Everybody 
in that port knew that it was to have the honor of 
being host to the Americans; and people traveling 
up to Paris carried the news. I heard the port 
identified as a matter of gossip before I heard its 
identification in the Staff as a matter of strict con- 
fidence. The mayor of the por^ issued a proclama- 
tion of welcome. He wanted a public ceremony and 
speech making. French journalists and photog- 
raphers went out on a dispatch boat to meet the 
first incoming transport. While we still had seven 
thousand men at sea, the bonds of censorship were 
broken and the initial landing of troops announced. 

That port was far from the French front. Ma- 
terial of war came to its piers, but no soldiers. Pros- 
perity and distinction beckoned to it from the first 
American transport that arrived, while our Admiral 
of the escort decided that he had a right to some 
relaxation and dinner on shore when the last was in. 
He had received a consignment of soldiers with 
orders to deliver them to France, and they were 
safely delivered. He had not thought that any acci- 
dent might happen. But suppose there had ! 



THE FIRST TROOPS ARRIVE 25 

The character of the ships which we had gath- 
ered as transports was significant enough of our lack 
of a merchant marine; a former German auxiliary 
cruiser and sea-going and coast-going vessels of a 
plodding speed. Above the gunwales of their gray 
sides was a crowded mass of khaki spotted with 
white faces, and all the parts of the superstructure 
were blotted and festooned by khaki, freed of the 
long nights in the close quarters of the hold when 
no lights might be shown on deck, now out in the 
sunlight of a June day having their first glimpse of 
France, which was having its first glimpse of an 
American army. Nothing that these soldiers saw 
was like what they had left — boats, piers, houses, 
streets, people — and they were like no soldiers who 
had ever come to France before. Their talk had 
the rattling twang of the bleachers before the ball 
game begins, unmistakable wherever you hear it. 
Well, here they were. The " subs " had not got 
them. They wouldn't have to knock about deck in 
the dark or be packed in the hold any longer. The 
sea was all right; let the navy have it! But give 
them the land; they were soldiers! When did they 
get ashore? And what next? A different set of 
questions rose in the observer's mind. How many 
more thousands and hundreds of thousands would 
come? When and where would their services end? 

Their landing resolved the landing of the Staff 
at Boulogne into a prologue in front of the curtain 
which now rose on the play. Town and quay fell 
into insignificance; the ships dissolved into the sky, 
leaving only the troops visible, supreme — the first of 
our fighting men in France. The wonder of Amer- 



26 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

ica in France never exerted its spell more com- 
pletely. To one whose emotions had lost their 
resiliency after watching the war for three years, 
here was somethinp; new. As he thought of all that 
the picture stood for to him, an American, the war 
was beginning afresh for him even as it was begin- 
ning in the minds of these men. As he tried to 
articulate the thrill of his emotions, something 
tightened his throat and left him silent with a mil- 
lion little needles running a riot of prickles through 
his veins. For these were his own soldiers, the 
soldiers of his own people, come from his land to 
hazard their courage in the greatest of wars. 

When I saw an American battalion marching 
through the streets and discrimination laid its re- 
straint on sentimental exhilaration in the recollec- 
tion of the columns of British regulars, every man 
molded by long training, which had marched out of 
Boulogne in August, 19 14, I almost wished that 
Staffs were less particular about all-round pro- 
grammes and that we had sent over a crack division 
of regulars as an example of the kind of trained 
soldiers that we could produce. 

"The babies!" said an old regular sergeant. 
" You can't blame them for their ignorance, and 
vou can't tell them all they've got to learn without 
taking the heart out of them. You've got to nurse 
them along by degrees, animad^•erting righteously 
to those who take their education best that way at 
intervals." 

They did know how to keep step and which is 
the business end of a rifle and that when you march 
in a column of fours this does not mean threes and 



THE FIRST TROOPS ARRIVE 27 

twos. Many were as they had come to the recruiting 
station plus a certain amount of drill at home, and 
all stilf-lcggcd, pasty and somewhat unkempt. If 
the sardines in the can were alive and flopped about 
they would not look neat when the can was opened. 
You noticed all kinds of Americans in the ranks as 
they went by — Americans who hardly spoke English 
as well as college graduates, including the veteran 
regulars whose straight backs and square shoulders 
stood out in admonitory superiority to youths who 
had yet to develop a soldier's physique before they 
went into battle. 

But they were troops, American troops, and in 
France I To no one had this fact a greater appeal 
than to General Pershing, who had come down from 
Paris as eager as a schoolboy to see them. Furthest 
removed of all officers from his men by the grada- 
tions of rank, the Commander-in-Chief, if he is a 
human leader and not a bureaucrat, is nearest them 
in thought. It is they who count. All organization 
exists to supply, equip, train and inspirit them. 

A walk through the streets of a depot of great 
warehouses leaves emotion dead where it thrills at 
sight of a platoon moving up to the trenches, or the 
gunners of a battery at work. Who, if not their 
leader, his firm features and erect carriage as an 
example of the iron will and bearing he would have 
them achieve, could realize the training these men 
needed? But they were troops — troops — troops; 
their presence in France meant that he had the 
nucleus of an army. There was a glad light in his 
eyes and also a light which was a promise of the 
course he was to put them through before they were 



28 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

to go into the trenches, which was for the sake of 
the United States and of their own mothers who 
would not want them heedlessly sacrificed in their 
callow unpreparedness. In numbers they were only 
half a full division, with their total of about thirteen 
thousand men, including a regiment of Marines, who, 
being used to ship life and having a larger percen- 
tage of veterans, showed the results in their appear- 
ance. 

This First Division was to have the handicap as 
well as the honor of being first. It was to be the 
object of the most experiments in training. From 
its experience were learned the lessons by which 
later arrivals profited. It came first out of democ- 
racy's individualism to the untried business of ship's 
discipline through the submarine zone; to the first 
censorship and all other kinds of regulations and 
to the first arrangements for landing and camping. 
Three-fourths of the oflScers were reserve, set over 
recruits sent to the scene of expert warfare. All 
this is not in criticism; only to indicate the nature 
of the travail which was to be theirs — the travail 
which wrought the First Division into finished sol- 
diers, as we shall see. 

At the camp outside the town where the men 
were to stretch their sea legs and brush up and 
acclimate themselves before moving to Lorraine, 
we had the first glimpse of that American soldier 
world which was to expand in France. There was 
an atmosphere of the border, no less than of home, 
in the queues of soldiers receiving their American 
rations, in the officers sitting down at their messes 
with the same food as the men; an expeditionary 



THE FIRST TROOPS ARRIVE 29 

effect which suggested that a landing in France of 
a force bringing the regulation army supplies was 
much the same as a landing at Vera Cruz, where 
three years previously I had seen our transports 
disembark troops and cargo — only the troops at 
Vera Cruz were all regulars, as you knew by the 
sight of them when they marched off the piers. 

It is only fair to say, too, that the details for 
the dispatch of this expedition from home had not 
been rehearsed according to accepted Prussian Staff 
thoroughness. The Quartermaster's Department, 
under the strain of providing for the training camps 
and the influx of recruits, must have given that ex- 
pedition such a blessing as this: " Joffre wanted 
troops in a hurry. Here they are. We've got them 
started, anyhow." Yes, we were to learn much about 
war organization in the next six months. The quar- 
termaster who had to receive the expedition may 
have cursed the home quartermaster in his heart; 
I never heard him curse aloud. He had to do the 
best he could in everything, from organizing mili- 
tary police to unloading cargo. 

The pioneers who had only to build themselves a 
house of hewn logs in the wilderness and bring in 
fresh meat with their rifles had a relatively simple 
task compared to his. He needed automobiles; he 
needed motor-trucks; he needed everything. Some 
of these were in the hold once they could be sorted 
out, for the different parts of a motor-truck might 
not be on one ship or two ships or three, and one 
essential part for the assembling might be altogether 
missing. Thus, there were other items than troops 
for General Pershing to consider in realizing his 



30 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

problem — which did not interfere with the im- 
pressiveness of his meeting with Admiral Cleaves, 
as the army shook the navy's hand, in congratula- 
tions over the fact that, regardless of the troubles 
of the quartermaster, the first contingent was safe 
In France. 

American mules went through the streets of that 
little port town, drawing army wagons piled high 
with officers' bedding rolls or sides of beef; motor- 
trucks that had been on the Mexican border ran past 
them on the way out to the camp; military police 
began keeping the crowds off the piers; the navy blue 
of sailors on shore mingled with khaki on the curbs 
or sat in front of the cafes; and under the covering 
barrages of gestures the vanguard of the expedition 
was making its first frontal attack on the French 
language. 



IV 



THEY GO TO LORRAINE 



Touring versus fighting in France — Wonderful roads of France — 
Billets — Introducing soldiers into the family life of the 
French — Lorraine and the I^rrainers — Actions and reactions 
between French as hosts and Americans as guests — Those do- 
mestic manure heaps — Why our boys respect the French — 
French " kiddies." 



In years to come the remark of the summer tourist, 
" I have been to France," will be an idle super- 
ficiality to the veterans of the A. E. F., who can say, 
" I have fought in France. I have marched the 
roads of France. I have ridden in box cars and 
slept in barns and dugouts and shell craters in France 
and lived in the homes of the people." 

As an educational institution the A. E. F. had the 
advantage of disciplinary application over Chau- 
tauquas and university settlements. Nineteen out of 
twenty of our men would never have gone to France 
if tlie nation had not put them in uniforms and given 
them a free passage. When they left America they 
were thinking only of a great adventure overseas. 
Their ideas about France were generically concrete, 
perhaps, though utterly vague in detail. Before the 
war they thought of the French as a polite, effemi- 
nate people ; since the war France had come to stand 
for courage and gameness. 

31 



32 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

An old traveler, who knew France well, might 
renew his youth by seeing France through the eyes 
of youth fresh from a new land. To our soldiers, 
I may repeat, there had been only one kind of rail- 
road cars, only one kind of surface cars, only one 
kind of towns, villages and farms — the kind they 
knew at home. As the French landscape unrolled 
before their eyes they saw the well-tilled fields 
stretching between the villages, where the farmers 
lived, as if forming a national garden. Everything 
in France seemed to have been built to last for a 
long time. There were rarely any yards in front 
of the houses which were Hush with the sidewalk; 
and then, to your surprise, you found cloistered gar- 
dens and lawns in the rear, hidden from the street. 
The people were polite and they smiled like the 
landscape. 

It was the roads, the great main roads, which 
won our chief admiration. They bound the farms 
anci the provinces together in still closer unity and 
they had a practical appeal which is so vital to armies 
moving on foot, on horseback or on wheels. 

Our first motor-truck company to arrive in France 
had come straight from Mexico, where it had been in 
pursuit of Villa. After the trucks were assembled 
and the captain, a reserve officer, announced that 
they were ready to start the next morning, the ser- 
geant7 an old regular with a sandstone face, desert- 
wrinkled, who treated the new captain with a kindly 
patronage, felt it his duty to remonstrate. 

" We've no frogs and chains," he said. These 
had been most essential in getting out of desert 
sloughs. 



THEY GO TO LORRAINE 33 

" Never mind. That will be all right! " the cap- 
tain said. 

*' Yes, sir, but I warn you we've got no frogs and 
chains," the sergeant concluded. 

He had given fair notice. Now let the captain 
find out for himself that handling army motor trans- 
port was a different business than running out from 
his office to the golf-course in his own machine. 

Straight and smooth a Route Nationale beckoned 
the sergeant the next morning when he left the port. 
The veteran trucks sped on for half an hour with 
that road seeming to have no end. But the ser- 
geant was still unconvinced. That Harvard college 
captain would yet see that frogs and chains were 
necessary. Two hours later, when the road was still 
the same taut ribbon stretching away into the dis- 
tance, he capitulated to the captain's foresight with 
a few dry remarks. 

*' Well, I hand it to these people in the matter of 
roads. They sure got Mexico beat and got us beat. 
Down in IVIexico I thought I was earning about five 
hundred dollars a month. I guess the prospect is 
now I'll be owing the Government something for 
the privilege of being in the army. In Mexico there 
don't seem nothing to do but make war and cussed- 
ness; but why should anybody want to go to war 
in a country like this? I guess the Kaiser wants 
some of this — that's what's the matter. Don't it 
kind of make your eyes sing after Mexico? — Every- 
thing so green and neat and all the little groves and 
trees like columns of soldiers guarding the roads. 
You can see that the people have been planting and 
reaping and sticking on the job generally for hun- 



34 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

dreds of years and they have certainly got a big bank 
account laid up in old mother earth." 

He was reminded by the captain how Caesar had 
built roads for the passage of his legions and how 
Napoleon had built more roads for the passage of 
his, all of which became a legacy to future genera- 
tions. Perhaps the necessity of the war which 
brought us to France may set our national thought 
to flowing on the straight broad way as the legacy 
of the A. E, F. to our future. 

Though our men wanted to take the roads of 
France home with them, none wanted to take his 
" billets." There is the word which spells the most 
significant feature of army life in France to every 
officer and soldier. " Tenting on the old camp 
ground to-night!" will hardly do as a song for 
future veterans' associations. In our mind army life 
was still associated with tents until the barracks of 
our training camps at home were built and the men 
began writing from France about their billets. 

The French were our hosts in more than a formal 
sense. We entered their homes as officially assigned 
guests. Reverse the situation and suppose that an 
army speaking another language came to help us 
against an invader, and when a company marched 
into a village every house became a hostelry to which 
a certain number of soldiers were assigned. It 
would create a flutter in our domestic circles, to say 
the least. In Europe to-day no man's house is his 
castle when the army wants it. The chateau be- 
comes the general's headquarters and other officers 
get quarters in a descending scale of comfort in 
keeping with their rank. It is the thought that an 



THEY GO TO LORRAINE 35 

invader will arbitrarily exercise the same authority, 
ever present in the French mind, which reinforces 
patriotism with a sovereign self-interest in national 
defense. 

" If you want a job that will tear your nerves to 
tatters be a billeting officer," said a weary colonel, 
after the First Division had arrived in its training 
area. The journey across France hardly recalled 
the luxury which private soldiers had enjoyed at 
home when they were sent to the Border in sleepers. 
Xow they went in box cars marked " 36 men or 8 
horses " — just as the sons of the best families in 
France travel on their troop trains, singing the songs 
of France and exchanging the quips of trench jargon 
— and after their arrival they were assigned to bil- 
lets in the village houses and barns. When an 
officer or a man says that he liked his billet in any 
particular village it means not only that he liked his 
quarters, but also his hosts and his neighbors. 
-KJur First Division was to train in the land of 
Joan of Arc. The Lorrainers are a stiff-necked 
people, less volatile than the people of other parts 
of France, but polite as are all the French. While 
they fought stubbornly in this war and in others to 
hold their frontier they were standing between the 
Germans and the sun-blessed southern France, which 
profTts by their wall of heroism as England profits by 
her Channel. In August, 19 14, the invaders swept 
as far as Charmes as the Bavarians aimed for the 
great gap of Mirecourt; and the people on the other 
side of Mirecourt heard the battle's roar recede with 
a feeling of thanksgiving whose devoutness central 
or southern France could only faintly appreciate. 



36 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

When you know Lorraine it seems fitting that it 
should have given Joan of Arc to France, To-day 
you may still see such peasant girls as she was, 
straight as young birch trees with eyes wide apart 
and sensitive mouths and firm chins. The villages 
have changed little since she tended her flocks and 
the character of the people is much the same as 
when she went forth from shepherding her flocks 
to lead an army. From high ground clusters of 
red roofs break into view on the rich river bottoms 
and in valleys mottled with woodlands and pastures, 
but proximity removes some of the charm and pic- 
turesqueness as you enter narrow streets where 
manure is piled in front of the house door. Local 
customs in this respect were something of a shock to 
the sons of progressive American farmers. 

Say that early in July you were in an automobile 
that had left a Route Nationale for a winding road 
that played hide and seek with a winding stream. 
A village slipped by and you saw men in campaign 
hats and khaki shirts and still more and more of 
them in the villages for the next sixteen miles. This 
was the American training area, and the inhabitants 
who had never seen even tourist Americans to speak 
to them might marvel at the dispensation of fortune 
which had made them the hosts of the American 
army. It was a surprise to some of them that we 
had not red skins. Our names were puzzling. Peo- 
ple to whom a German is a German and a French- 
man is a Frenchman, born on opposite sides of a 
frontier and predestined to war, might wonder how 
Private Schmittberger U. S. A., could fight on the 
French side. 



THEY GO TO LORRAINE 37 

Our theory of a melting-pot, amalgamating all 
races into a nation which was ready to shed its blood 
for the cause which was France's, required elucida- 
tion to a peasant of Lorraine steeped in racial an- 
tipathy. Even educated Frenchmen were appre- 
hensive lest our troops include German sympathizers. 
The convincing answer kept to practical grounds. 
Didn't Private Schmittberger look as American as 
Private Smith or De la Croix? Weren't there Ger- 
man names in France, particularly in Lorraine? 

The best time to make the run through our area 
was in the late afternoon when the companies were 
mustered for evening roll call, supple shoulders 
showing under soft khaki shirts and features with 
dry skin sharply outlined, inherently, appealingly 
American in the golden light of the evening sun. 
Later, you saw them in groups about the doorways 
of the old houses in the dusk, the novelty of their 
presence still dominating everything. They had 
made that valley theirs by the very character of 
their uniforms which identified any man in silhouette 
to the eye at a distance. 

Products of a different language and different 
customs, introduced into strange surroundings and 
other people's homes, we must play a worthy part as 
guests. General Orders No. 7, issued on July 3rd, 
had in mind the irritations and difficulties that might 
/^arise from the peculiar situation. It appealed to 
the self-respect of the thoughtful " in the good name 
of the United States," with a reminder for the 
thoughtless that those who offended would be 
brought to trial under the 89th Article of War^ 
The spirit of Lee's order to his army upon the in- 



s 



38 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

vasion of Pennsylvania shone through this order, 
it was expressive of our idea that a man's house is 
a castle; of the very principle for which we were 
fighting against militarism. 

*' The good name of the United States and main- 
tenance of cordial relations require perfect deport- 
ment of each member of this command," the order 
read in part. " It is of the gravest importance that 
the soldiers of the American army shall at all times 
treat the people of France, especially the women, 
with the greatest courtesy and consideration. The 
valiant deeds of the French armies and those of her 
Allies, by which they have together successfully main- 
tained their common cause for three years, and the 
sacrifice of the civil population of France in the sup- 
port of their armies, command our profound respect. 
This can best be expressed on the part of our 
forces by uniform courtesy to all the French 
people and by faithful observance of their laws 
and customs. 

*' Company and Detachment commanders will in- 
form themselves and advise their men as to local 
police regulations and will enforce strict observance 
thereof. 

" The intense cultivation of the soil in France 
and the conditions caused by the war make it neces- 
sary that extreme care be taken to do no damage 
to private property. The entired French manhood 
capable of bearing arms Is in the field fighting the 
enemy. Only old men, women and children remain 
to cultivate the soil. It should, therefore, be a point 
of honor with each member of the American army 
to avoid doing the least damage to any property in 



THEY GO TO LORRAINE 39 

France. Such damage is much more reprehensible 
here than in our own country." 

In contravention of army sanitary regulations 
about the removal of such nuisances, did this warn- 
ing apply to the manure pile whose odors pene- 
trated into the haymow where Privates Schmitt- 
berger and Smith had their home? Their grand- 
fathers would not have minded. Only in the pres- 
ent generation has sanitation become a cult with us, 
which makes our nostrils delicately sensitive and 
requires sleeping porches lest we breathe anything 
but fresh air. Our men had been punched or vac- 
cinated for every known disease for which there is 
an injective antidote. They were bred into the great 
bath-tub-filter-and-sanitary-plumbing era,<io less thaa 
every Frenchman is bred into his antipaN^y to the 
German. I recollect one day meeting a young of- 
ficer, obviously brought up in cotton wool, who had 
just bought a siphon of seltzer in a French village. 

" I don't dare drink this local water," he said, 
*' so I bought this bottle. Do you think it is all 
right?" 

" Didn't you have your typhoid and paratyphoid 
shots? " I asked, a teasing spirit possessing me when 
I saw what a nice chubby young man he was. 

" Yes, sir, but you never know." 

" Aren't you wearing your metal identification 
tag? " I asked. 

" Yes, sir, but " 

" Well, that means you wouldn't be among the 
unknown when the casualty list goes home," I said. 
" That bottle is full of germs. It's been in the 
shop accumulating germs for years waiting for you.** 



40 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

" Are you joking with me? " he asked. " This Is 
a serious matter." 

He was expressive of an extreme that amused an 
old civilization with Its metlculoslty. I was happy 
to tell him that our bacteriological experts had ex- 
amined the local water supply and found It pure. A 
year later the young man had lost some weight from 
hard training, which was good for him, but he was 
drinking the water he found In the carafes on res- 
taurant tables — which is not saying that the infinite 
care taken about the health of our army is not 
worth while. Rather, It confirms the triumphant 
fact that when we landed we brought all the fine 
traditions of our medical corps In the Philippines 
and the Caribbean to France, and all the directions 
of loving parents, too. 

I gasped when I saw one of our army wagons 
removing a manure pile. 

*' Do you think you can get away with that kind 
of thing in France?" I asked. 

" As fast as we can. One more load will finish 
this lot." 

They were dumping it outside the town, without 
regard to whether It was on the owner's premises 
or not, I fear. The resulting disturbance of inter- 
national relations required that French liaison of- 
ficers exert to the fullest their diplomatic influence. 
We were ready to pay for the damage done and 
were Americans, to whom much was forgiven. Curi- 
osity as to our character and doings exerted a lenient 
influence. If we wanted to sweep the streets and pick 
up every little bit of paper and remove every bit 
of rubbish in sight, why, the Inhabitants respected 



THEY GO TO LORRAINE 41 

our army and customs as we were supposed to respect 
theirs — respected them more, perhaps, than would 
many an American community where the painstaking 
hand of sanitary mihtary discipline has not de- 
scended. 

The remainder of the general order about the 
absence of able-bodied men referred to a fact which 
was most appealing to our soldiers; a fatt brought 
home to them in every village. France was not ex- 
pecting others to fight for her without fighting her- 
self. Besides, we had a new lesson in industry — 
we who had thought of ourselves as an industrious 
people. When reveille sounded the family was al- 
ready awake and young boys and every old man 
and woman who could hobble starting out for work 
in the fields. We saw afresh and vividly, as I have 
said, the things which were old to those who had 
been in Europe since the start of the war; how no 
description could make you realize the tremendous 
conflict and the penetration of its influence into every 
heart, every house, every blade of grass; how sacri- 
fice was borne stoically and cheerfully. 

Soldiers, who seem to acquire the simplicity of 
children, are fond of children; innocence takes the 
mind away from the monotony of drill and the moil 
of the trenches. The men prefer the admiration of 
children to the cheers of a crowd for their heroism, 
and " kid talk " to recounting exploits to adult 
admirers. The spell which the children of France 
exerted over every soldier from the first was not 
alone due to the sympathy which their smiles, or the 
smiles of their mothers for the future's sake when 
the husband was dead on the field of honor, aroused 



42 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

on the background of war. We found that whether 
the children came from chateau or from alleys, they 
had as a birthright that indescribable thing most dif- 
ficult of acquirement and most truly French — charm. 
Their parents had thrift, too. It was from children 
that the soldiers largely learned their French, 
though not in the manner of a powerfully built cor- 
poral I have in mind seated in a doorway, knotting 
his brows over his primer which made French easy 
in a few lessons. He drew up on his lap, much as 
a big dog would lift a puppy, a little girl who had 
been sitting at his feet, regarding him as she would 
an inhabitant from another world. 

"Say, kid, is this right? "Hie asked, as he read 
off an exercise according to his own phonetic pro- 
nunciation. 

" Oiiif Oiiif " said the child, who thought that 
he was still speaking English; and thus they con- 
tinued the lesson happily together. 



y^ 



HARD TRAINING 



The sentry at Headquarters — A true soldier of France — A head- 
quarters at school — ^Leavenworth and the chasseurs alpins — 
Drill, drill, and more drill — Baseball and bomb throwing not 
identical — French teachers and American scholars — Funda- 
mentals and fine points of training — Our artillery begins to 
learn. 



If we wished to hide our division in France and 
make its training a matter of strict family secrecy 
we could not have chosen a better retreat than the 
folds of the Lorraine landscape. The only his- 
trionic effect about the division headquarters, which 
was located in a house up a side street of the largest 
of the villages in our area, was the chasseur alpin 
who stood sentry at its entrance. He was a par- 
ticularly fine specimen of that famous corps of 
mountain fighters, the Blue Devils. His rakish blue 
Tam O'Shanter cap set off a certain self-conscious- 
ness of the honor which was his as the result of his 
heroic exploits. Dust on the dustiest days seemed 
never to cling to his blouse; he looked always fresh, 
cool and on the qui vive. 

Napoleon and the great Conde and d'Artagnan 
would have approved of him as having the true elan 
of a French warrior. Meissonier and Detaille 
would not have required any further posing before 

43 



44 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

painting him. The more times he had to present 
arms the better it seemed to please him; and he 
seemed always to put into the formality something 
of the spirit of a Coquelin in his first pass in a stage 
duel. Officers Avho answered his salute thought that 
with a miUion such they might conquer the world; 
American soldiers who had not yet looked over a 
trench parapet saw in him the miraculous survivor 
of three years' fighting. He was truly a mighty 
man; and by the criterion of his presence one might 
expect to find inside headquarters the clicking to- 
gether of heels and the summary commands of the 
hour of battle. 

Turn to the right as you entered headquarters, 
and, at the little table next the door, sat the adju- 
tant. He was a kind and patient man, or he would 
never have attempted to answer half the questions 
asked him. Next to him at another small table was 
one of the division commander's aides, who was so 
good-natured in those trying days that he was later 
put in charge of transportation, with malice pre- 
pense, I think, to see if an unacclimatized mule train 
would not make him lose his temper. It did, occa- 
sionally. A French interpreter and the one priceless 
field clerk and his typewriter completed the personnel 
in this room. In the adjoining one, with the door 
always open, sat Major General William L. Sibert, 
then commanding the division, and, in the corner, his 
Chief of Staff. 

Upstairs were junior officers up to their ears in 
French documents on tactics and drill, which, with 
the help of a French interpreter and a French of- 
ficer, they were turning into English. No maps of 



HARD TRAINING 45 

trenches on the walls ! No reports of actions from 
the front ! It was like no other division headquar- 
ters in France. 

The dreamers at General Headquarters might 
make their project for an ultimate one or two or 
three million men, but here rested the concrete re- 
sponsibility of speedily getting a few thousand men 
ready for the trenches. 

Leavenworth and the French Chasseurs co- 
operated in the task. Who had ever heard of our 
army school of the Line and Staff College at Leaven- 
worth before we entered the war, let alone consid- 
ered what influence it might have on the destinies 
of the world? Even the average citizen of adjacent 
Kansas City had little idea of what was going on 
in that army post. In the midst of the wheat fields 
of Kansas, officers of mature years became stu- 
dents again, striving by ten or twelve hours' ap- 
plication a day to be graduated with honors. If 
we had no armies to maneuver in fact, they would 
maneuver imaginary armies. They worked over the 
details of organization and combat; prepared prob- 
lems for solution; moved their units in attack and 
retreat; besieged fortresses and sent out flying 
expeditions against guerillas — all in the fascina- 
tion of the " war game " to zealous professional 
minds. 

What algebra, trigonometry and calculus are to 
the engineers, what the Beaux Arts is to the archi- 
tect, that course was to them. It developed powers 
of application; opened the doors of understanding to 
the problems of real war; engendered appreciation 
of the infinitely complicated business of the feeding 



46 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

and movement of great masses of men as a homo- 
geneous force. 

The first training orders of the First Division set 
the command's working hours as eight with Sunday 
and Saturday afternoon free. " All possible means," 
it said, " will be employed with the utmost vigor 
to improve the appearance, military bearing and 
spirit of the officers and soldiers of this command." 
Physical drill, close order drill and marches of not 
more than two hours a day were the initial pre- 
scription for stiffening backs with layers of muscle 
and establishing the sense of obedience and co- 
ordination. And then the salute. That seems a 
kind of formality which has little to do with killing 
the enemy, but it is the a b c of discipline. Veterans 
may be careless about it and still be efficient, per- 
haps, though they set a bad example and open the 
way to their own deterioration. Novices, at least, 
may not neglect this essential of inculcating that 
instinctive subordination which is requisite if orders 
are to be obeyed. 

The First Division had been no further advanced 
in the fundamentals of training than the other reg- 
ular divisions at home, which had the same propor- 
tion of recruits. It had lost time in transit, with 
military deportment and physical condition suffering 
on the long voyage; but now it was actually in 
France, actually in the theater of war, where uncon- 
sciously it would absorb the lessons of war. The 
imposition of discipline was easy in an isolated com- 
munity dissociated from any except military influence. 

Our officers could learn first hand what part of 
their old teachings they must discard, and they were 



HARD TRAINING 47 

often to be puzzled by the difference of opinion of 
the experts on the spot. What was approved one 
month might not be the next. The success of some 
change of tactics at the front meant a new fashion 
in training; for in nothing is the criterion of success 
so mandatory as in war. Where, at home, instruc- 
tion was under the advice of a few AUied officers 
in each camp, men in France had the advantage, 
in place of class-room recital and lectures, of private 
tutoring by a force of chasseurs alpins who were 
billeted in the villages of a road that ran parallel 
to ours. 

Thus settled in their summer homes the grind 
began. As one of our soldiers said, if he had known 
that four months of such drudgery was coming, he 
would have left his part in making the world safe 
for democracy to Kerensky. The training section 
of the General Staff did not think there was any 
road to efficiency but drill and more drill. Notice 
was served that we were through with the idea 
that a million men In shirt sleeves could spring to 
arms and overwhelm any power that dared to 
threaten us. 

Every morning, soon after dawn, instructors and 
pupils marched out from their billeting areas to the 
training grounds, where the picture in the early days 
suggested the first preparations for some great 
pageant in the Instruction of small groups as a pre- 
lude to general rehearsals. French talent for panto- 
mime made up for the want of a common tongue. 
After the chasseurs had given an exhibition of how 
a thing was done, they watched us try to Imitate their 
proficiency and corrected our mistakes. Blue cap 



48 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

and campaign hat nodded together over a lessoa in 
the use of the automatic rifle or the machine gun. 

We were tenderfeet in a strange land and we 
knew it. The chasseurs knew it, too. They got a 
subtle enjoyment out of the privileges of teaching 
us fundamentals which will furnish them with as 
interesting yarns as their battles for their grand- 
children in days to come. We admired them because 
they knew their business — which is the highest of 
compliments to our practical American minds. 

If we did not find as much fun in the curriculum 
as they, that was only the misfortune of the learner 
at any game. Our regret was that they had every- 
thing to show us and we had nothing to show them 
in return. We thought that the tables would be 
turned by our baseball training when it came to 
throwing hand grenades; and they would have been 
if a baseball and a hand grenade were of the same 
weight. As they are not, strained arms soon con- 
vinced us that the overhand bowling throw was the 
best; and you must learn that, too, according to an 
exact system, as you had to learn everything else 
from the standardized experience of trench warfare. 

Pantomime had its limitations even in the demon- 
stration of physical action. You not only want the 
golf teacher to show you how to make the stroke, 
but to tell you the theory of it and the reason for 
it. The language difHculty only increased French 
politeness, whether the instructor spoke English him- 
self or acted through an interpreter. Sometimes we 
were praised as the most wonderful of students, 
when our regular officers had an idea that progress 
was partly due to the fact that they had been pretty 



HARD TRAINING 49 

well grounded in the military rudiments before they 
came to France. What they wanted was a straight- 
out-from-the-shoulder criticism such as they were ac- 
customed to make among themselves. 

" Is what the French say just kidding Lafayette 
stuff or are we really prodigies? " exclaimed an of- 
ficer, after he had been the recipient of a panegyric 
through an interpreter; for compared to the way 
the chasseurs carried out the movement it looked 
to him as if his men belonged to the bush league. 

" Come on, now, put more pep into it! " American 
voices rang out. " That's better." 

Baseball might not help us to throw hand gre- 
nades, but the baseball spirit was there. Pride and 
ambition urged on our efforts. When noon came 
sharp appetites welcomed luncheon and tired mus- 
cles welcomed rest as the men dropped to earth. 
Usually we formed groups by ourselves and the 
French by themselves. Masters and pupils had had 
enough language effort in school hours without con- 
tinuing it in periods of relaxation. To labor in 
French when you are dog tired is a little more than 
you or your auditor can bear. 

There was not much drill in the afternoon. Work 
must halt when staleness and weariness reached a 
point where the spur of will defeated its own pur- 
pose. There was the homeward march to make and 
fatigue details to be performed in the villages. 
After supper, in the cool of the evening, were more 
French lessons from the women and children in the 
doorways; and then, up the ladder into the barn loft, 
to be turned out again at dawn to march to another 
day of school. 



50 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

As thoroiiirhly as doctors study their patients the 
men were studied in order to gain the niaxinuim of 
results; and soldier psychology played a part. 
Many of the men had the idea that the war would 
be over before they would ever get into the trenches; 
that all this drilling would be as futile as carrying 
water from a creek to the top of a hill and allowing 
it to flow back into the creek. The British New 
Army battalions were possessed with the same il- 
lusion In the fall of 1914 and also many of the 
recruits in our Civil War. Homesickness, too, ap- 
peared — with many circumstances to develop it. 

Had Washington forgotten us? Were we only 
a sentimental, a diplomatic army? Oflicers found it 
hard to think otherwise, considering the things 
ordered which did not arrive. Their troubles were 
not contineci to their work with the men and to 
" paper work " half the night. Some were associ- 
ated with the quartermaster in the schoolhouse in 
headquarters town. It might be a gratifying thing 
for him to consider the resources of the United 
States, but it ciid not solve his problems of transport. 
A small barrack building had been erected as his 
depot over by the railroad station — the Nestor of all 
the depots. He was glad to issue or to sell anything 
he had to anybody in uniform and he would send 
telegrams down the line to hurry up consignments 
and try to do anything else you wanted him to do, 
except the impossible. He was perfectly willing to 
try that again, but by the criterion of past ex- 
perience could hold out no promises of satisfac- 
tory results. 

When the men ran short of smoking tobacco for 



HARD TRAINING 51 

a while, French cigarettes did not take the place of 
the " makings." 1 he news that a consignment of 
baseball equipment had gone down at sea was a 
tragedy; and they could not buy the little things they 
liked, toilet soap, gum, candy. Letters were long 
in coming from home — that hurt most. When a 
letter was received, well it brought up visions of 
the soda water fountain in the corner drug store, 
and the local league scores, the family and kids and 
what your friends were doing. I his great adven- 
ture stuff was all right, but it did not make you 
feel any less like a stranded orphan child far away 
in Lorraine. However, play the game and don't 
fail to salute your superior officer. He salutes his 
superior who salutes Pershing, who salutes the Presi- 
dent whom you elected to give you orders to salute 
in time of war. 

There was some consolation that as the training 
advanced it became more interesting and varied. 
From the first reader we went to the second; from 
arithmetic to algebra; from exercises to problems 
and maneuvers. In fact we had relief from practice 
strokes and were allowed to play around the course. 
When the French advanced under a barrage to the 
attack to show us how an attack was to be made 
and we repeated the maneuver with shells sweeping 
oyer our heads — this was something like. But it 
lid not mean that we were going into the trenches 
yet. W^e were back at practicing strokes again in 
the different schools of specialism. 

Our officers visited the French front to see in 
practice what they were learning in theory. They 
heard lectures and still more lectures. The training 



52 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

was having its eftect on them no less than on the 
men. Surplus adipose had evaporated under rigor- 
ous exercise. Figures were more perpendicuhirly 
formal when they saluted and bodies had more 
litheness in rushing a machine gun up a trench. 
Young reserve officers became sure of themselves. 
What a transformation when the command ap- 
peared in steel helmets in place of campaign hats! 
It led friends when they met to say: " Introduce me 
to the stranger! " Anybody who accepted the hel- 
mets as a sure sign that now we were really going to 
see action was disillusioned upon learning that rank 
and file must become accustomed to wearing them, as 
well as to the use of gas masks. 

Meanwhile, the division's brigade of artillery ar- 
rived and was going through its paces on a French 
artillery training ground under Major General Pey- 
ton C. March. Its percentage of recruits was as 
high as that of the infantry regiments; for we had 
scattered our regular artillerymen as schoolmasters 
as broadcast as our infantrymen. These recruits 
were supplied with the French 75mm. field gun and 
the French 155, while the example of proficiency to 
be achieved in artillery was the most impressive, in 
view of the traditions of French gunnery from Na- 
poleon's time, and its development in this war. A 
French battery in action is an expression of all the 
finesse of French artillery spirit and character. The 
veteran gunners do not bother to swagger. They 
take it for granted that they are masters of their 
art. Their discipline is that of the coordination of 
perfect appreciatioir of each man of his part and of 
the professional confidence of the expert. 



HARD TRAINING 53 

" We breed gunners in France," said a French 
officer. 

All the world knows by this time the system of 
modern artillery fire and how it symbolizes the 
science and the painstaking detail of modern war. 
The gunners, never seeing their target, are in the 
position of the engineers in the bowels of a cruiser 
answering the captain's call from the bridge. Our 
men might go through the prescribed drill quite to 
their own satisfaction only to be shocked by the 
poor results of their shooting. They would have 
been more shocked if they could have seen a motion 
picture of their own movements compared to those 
of French veterans. We might know the theory, 
but the stroke we could achieve only by practice 
which would make the gun become a living thing to 
us as it was to the French, who, on the fields of the 
Marne and Lorraine, had saved France with their 
artillery genius. We must have the gun's nerves 
of steel and our human nerves must flow into its 
steel. The hand that swung the breechblock must 
be welded to it by an electric touch of understanding. 

A gunner's reasons for training hard are as dis- 
tinct as a blood-red spot on a white bandage. A 
slip on his part is as fatal as that of a surgeon's 
knife. His responsibility there in the gun pit is 
accuracy — the accuracy of every unit of a chorus of 
batteries in laying a swath of protection for ad- 
vancing infantry, or in withering the enemy's ad- 
vance with their blasts. Inaccuracy simply means 
that you are killing your own comrades instead of 
the enemy. 
r The responsibility of those who give orders from 



54 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the other end of the telephone, even heavier, is that 
of science and judgment which are no less wrought 
of experience as the final instructor. Consider the 
difference between gunnery in August, 19 14, and 
August, 1917, though the French field gun had not 
changed, and you span the developments in naviga- 
tion between Columbus' day and the present. Shell 
bursts are moved here and there as you move pins 
on a map. You turn on one battery or a hundred 
batteries, disposing their shots according to the pat- 
tern required by the situation. It is science with 
the fascination of magic; but science subject to 
human error, in a combination of the intricacies of 
observation and calculation which leaves nothing 
atmospheric, nothing terrestrial, nothing that eye 
can see or brain can conceive out of account. Sound 
ranging, whereby you plot the position of an 
enemy's gun through locating the sound of its blast, 
was nursed through the infancy of experiments, until 
it became a most important branch of artillery 
science. 

On the other side of No Man's Land the other 
fellow conceals his guns, and on your side yours are 
set like chessmen on the board under your hand 
playing against moves behind his screen, where thou- 
sands of monsters in their lairs may have cunningly 
scattered their shots in registering on their chosen 
targets before, at the given moment, all turn loose 
their thunders in the preparation for an attack. If 
you could know where epch of his guns are located, 
your guns could silence his fire gun for gun. 

This, of course, is only repeating what has been 
often told before, with the conscious aim of con- 



HARD TRAINING 55 

veying the nature of the undertaking in making 
artillery beginners, officers and men, with their 
groundwork of theory sufficiently trained practi- 
tioners to be allowed at the front. It is one thing 
to hit the target, another to make an accurate bar- 
rage, and both are a long way from acquiring all the 
" business " which written texts or word of mouth 
cannot explain; a very long way from sure judg- 
ment in the test of battle, reenforced by the sys- 
tematic control of observation and transmission of 
information, which knows where to place the bar- 
rage and when to lift it, what calibers for that pur- 
pose and what for this, and with all dependent 
upon that promptness and accuracy at any hour, day 
or night, from the batteries which must fit action 
nicely with plan when delay may reckon its costs in 
lives. 

Thus, the gunners in their camp learned their 
first lessons and the infantry in their camps learned 
theirs, waiting on the day when the guns should go 
into position behind the infantry in face of the enemy 
to form a unit of action. Both branches were im- 
patient; and their impatience was valuable in so far 
as it was transformed into application which would 
hasten the fruition of their desire. It was for these 
pioneers to set the traditions of thoroughness, when 
thoroughness is less our national characteristic than 
resource, quickness and initiative, some critics say. 
If so, this was the more reason for the restraint of 
the judges in training as they waited for the temper 
of the human steel to set. 



VI 



A BLUE PRINT ERA 

Laying plans for the construction of a giant — France a sheet of 
white paper whereon we had to write our undertaking — 
Necessary to bring our own war materials — Early regiments 
of American railway employees and lumber men — Clubbing 
together with France and England to obtain material in the 
quickest time — Negro roustabouts to the rescue — American 
railroad officials rushed to France to direct our transportation 
— Big plans and slow fulfillment — Beginning to carry through 
an enterprise greater than building the Panama Canal. 

If we are to have a complete picture of what 
America was doing in France at this time we must 
consider other stages of preparation which ran cur- 
rent with the early stages of training of the troops. 
General Pershing's headquarters had to remain in 
Paris through July and August in order to be at a 
central point for administration; or, rather, for the 
establishing and developing of something to admin- 
ister. With its texts set, the First Division might 
proceed with its lessons. The General had to pre- 
pare for the other divisions which were to come. 

Even the skeleton of the project which we had 
planned existed as yet only as a blue print. We must 
make the bones of this giant before we could articu- 
late them and attach flesh and mucles and provide 
a brain and a circulatory system. He must have 
nerves enough but not too many, and his legs must 

56 



A BLUE PRINT ERA 57 

not be too long for his body or his body too large 
for his heart. His form and character, his morals 
and morale, his efficiency and spirit required that 
scientific building should follow scientific plans, with 
such supplies of labor and material as were available. 
Secretary Baker had expressed our situation in a 
phrase when he said that France was a sheet of white 
paper whereon we had to write our undertaking. 

Exclusive of Krupps and her other plants which 
she had developed for this war, Germany, as a manu- 
facturing country in the all-round sense, was better 
adapted for meeting war requirements than Britain 
or France. Russia was almost entirely, and Serbia 
and Rumania entirely, agricultural. Italy had 
neither coal nor iron. The black country of France 
passed into German hands early in the war. De- 
pending upon the possession of the sea routes of the 
world as a guarantee of munitions which should 
overwhelm the besieged Central Powers, the Allies 
were losing ships faster than they were being built. 

Our own resources had already been stretched 
in filling the war orders that had lifted us out of 
an era of hard times into an era of plethoric trade 
balances and banking reserves. When we entered 
the war, cargoes were piled upon our piers awaiting 
transport across the Atlantic. Men labored in the 
fields of Kansas to produce grain and in our plants 
and factories to produce material which passed into 
the shark's maw of the U-boats. Destruction was 
everywhere overwhelming construction. 

For three years all the able-bodied young men 
of France had been non-productive. Available labor 
had been diverted from peace to war requirements. 



58 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

Crops were sown and reaped, but weeds crept into 
the fields for lack of proper husbandry. Upkeep 
was everywhere neglected, except under the direc- 
tion of military necessity; and French no less than 
German railways had deteriorated both in rolling 
stock and roadbeds. 

Our untrained army could not expect material 
from the French which they needed for their own 
trained army. We who were in France did not 
need to wait on the Russian collapse or the Italian 
defeat on the Isonzo for an appreciation of the 
nature of a situation which characterized Germany's 
peace proposals as a subterfuge to lull the Allies 
into a false conviction of her weakness, while she 
worked out her plans. The proposed pooling of 
Allied resources, a favorite subject of inter-allied 
conference and journalistic suggestion, now had a 
practical application in certain adjustments, through 
French and American military authorities, whereby 
we supplied France with what we could spare and 
she supplied us with what she could spare. 

We had skilled labor at home, untrained in war, 
which could release her skilled labor trained in war 
to go to the front. Indeed, Joffre's first call had 
been for railway engineers. The pioneer regiment 
dispatched in haste, illy equipped, was so useful that 
word was sent home for the organization of more of 
these regiments, which, as fast as they arrived, were 
distributed about France. They adapted themselves 
to the strange business of running trains according 
to the French railroad system, or, set to the hard 
labor which is the initiation of immigrants into our 
*' melting-pot," they plied pick and shovel on con- 



A BLUE PRINT ERA 59 

struction work, their occupation glorified by the fact 
that they were helping to make war in France. 

Tonnage for the shipment of lumber for our bar- 
racks and other structures could be saved if we 
transferred lumbermen from our primitive forests 
of the Northwest to the cultivated forests of France. 
For lighter unskilled work France could offer us 
invalided soldiers, men too old for the trenches, or 
German prisoners, who might have to be taken from 
the fields, leaving a heavier burden on the old men 
and women and children, or from the repair of the 
roads, which must be kept in condition for army 
transport by the continued attention of those blue- 
coated territorials who stand to one side from their 
labor as the cars pass. 

If we sent locomotives and rolling stock to 
France, she could lease us any buildings not in use 
to house our personnel. In return for our meat and 
grain we could buy vegetables from her gardens; 
and, incidentally, that French hen, the mother of 
the omelet of France, had survived the ravages of 
automobiles in sufficient numbers to keep up an 
amazing supply of fresh eggs. She seemed to real- 
ize her duty to her country and by her devotion to 
it in winter months defied cold storage monopolies, 
though not that continual rise in prices which every 
shopkeeper excused by saying, " It is the war." 

France could make planes for our aviators In 
training until the Liberty Plane arrived. In the 
same way we secured the equipment of our artillery 
until we should produce guns of the French models 
which were to take the place of our own. The steel 
billets which France had from us were forged into 



6o AMERICA IN FRANCE 

75's and 155's by French arsenals which had been 
developed to abundant capacity. British plants, al- 
ready in operation, could supply us with steel hel- 
mets and with gas masks until we were making our 
own models in sufficient quantity. There might be 
no question of the superiority of our Browning ma- 
chine gun, but until it was produced in numbers we 
must depend on French machine guns and automatic 
rifles. Every horse for our guns and transport 
which we could buy in France meant additional space 
on board ship for transporting troops. Thus, by 
clubbing together, the Allies fitted out our forces 
with such things as we lacked. It was a patchwork 
kind of business which had to consider " priority " 
from many angles of Influence and administra- 
tion. 

When every day's delay In unloading ships meant 
waste in tonnage by increasing the time of the " turn- 
around " — that besetting phrase of the tonnage ex- 
perts — there was a demand for something sturdier 
than Frenchmen, who were not able-bodied enough 
to fight for the business of putting cargo on shore 
and handling it after it was on shore. The powers 
of darkness came to the rescue when word of the 
situation was carried to the banks of the Missis- 
sippi. There was nothing aenemic about the cohorts 
from the levees, the first men from national draft, 
I believe, to arrive in France. 

Certainly, the process of selection In this instance 
was a very simple one in the classification of per- 
sonnel. No travelers were ever more genuinely 
homesick; but "that there" draft had them In Its 
grip, and, needless to say, as an Institution was not 



A BLUE PRINT ERA 6i 

the object of any sentimental enthusiasm on their 
part. in common with other men assigned, hun- 
dreds of miles in the rear, to the same kind of work 
they did at home, they reahzed, to the disgust of 
their martial inclinations, that fighting is not all 
there is to making war. When a colored regiment 
distinguished itself, this was some satisfaction to 
their racial pride and awakened their hope that 
they might yet have a chance to meet the 
Germans. 

More and more of our outposts were scattered 
over France. And they were only outposts; tiny 
dots on that " sheet of white paper " connected up 
by the flights of officers in automobiles with port- 
folios full of plans and additional blue prints. The 
wild stories of our building a railroad across France 
at the rate of ten miles a day and depots arising 
as by magic were the interpretation of our dreams 
by public imagination, which drew its inspiration 
from the diabolical energy of the scouts and the 
projectors who were trying to make bricks without 
straw and even without clay. They did not wait on 
negotiations through headquarters, but acted on their 
own initiative in seeking material from the French. 
A reply to an inquiry that there was no material was 
not final to the inquirer. He took his interpreter 
and went in search of the thing he wanted. When 
he found it and sought the owner, he might learn that 
it was already promised or needed for French pur- 
poses; or, if for sale, that it was second hand or 
third hand or ready for the junk pile, while the 
price demanded was in keeping with the limitations 
of supply. 



62 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

Americans used to calling up a lumber yard, a 
machine shop, or an employment agency on the tele- 
phone and having an order filled, were trying to 
avoid nervous prostration as they became familiar- 
ized with the meaning of war conditions. Mean- 
while, they wanted to report progress to head- 
quarters which was considerate unless the subject 
was supplies for the troops in training, which ever 
had absolute priority. 

Regular officers with a few from the reserve 
corps, who had been sponsors of the blue prints 
and the placing of the outposts, were reenforced 
by every steamer from the States with personnel 
which in civil life had built bridges, tunnels, piers 
and railways and organized labor. One of the 
directors of a great railroad system became our 
railroad general, bringing with him subordinates 
commissioned on a day's notice, to whom their uni- 
forms were still an harassing envelope strapped on 
their persons by a Sam Browne belt. They reached 
involuntarily for their waistcoat pockets before it 
occurred to them to look at their wrist watches to 
see what was the time of day. 

If they were middle-aged men and settled in their 
habits, French customs in the matter of light break- 
fasts and serving the meat and vegetables in sep- 
arate courses were an additional annoyance. One 
reserve Major, who had been used to putting on his 
shoes before his trousers, was triumphant one morn- 
ing over the fact that he was at last accustomed to 
breeches, as he had remembered to put them on be- 
fore his shoes. 

All arrived with the speed of a limited express, 



A BLUE PRINT ERA 63 

only to have the brakes put on by the shipping situa- 
tion, which stood in the way of immediately receiving 
from home a requisition for " a thousand miles of 
telephone wire, water supply pumps, tanks, stand- 
pipes, shop facilities, including all appliances for 
repairing and rebuilding locomotives and cars; track 
and bridge tools for maintenance purposes, wreck- 
ing outfits, pile drivers, track-laying machinery, oxy- 
acetylene plants, concrete-mixing plants, two-ton and 
five-ton locomotive cranes, portable electric light 
plants " and a few other things which would make 
an engineering force feel comfortable where they 
had such a job as the blue prints called for to per- 
form on short notice. Such demands went over the 
cable along with a call for reserve officers for man- 
aging laundries, looking after repair shops for boots 
and shoes, or ten thousand lariat straps and ten thou- 
sand picket pins, thus keeping the War Department 
fully occupied with troubles of its own. 

Having come to France to " make good " as 
chosen men of their calling, when they considered 
their previous standards of accomplishment these 
experts might have thrown up their hands in dismay; 
but that was un-American. They went to work and 
talked like optimists to keep themselves cheerful, or 
foregathered around the blue prints and discussed 
whether or not we had secured sufficient space for 
the spur tracks required back of the piers we were 
to build as soon as we had pile drivers and piles, 
if the " project " were expanded to three million 
men. One railroad man said that you did not have 
to go " over the top " in order to realize the truth 
of Sherman's saying about war. He had enough 



64 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

idea of It in trying to assemble a locomotive with the 
help of four German prisoners, a French interpreter 
and a second lieutenant who was said to be a good 
Latin scholar but had not yet become " classified 
personnel." 

Anyone who went along the lines of communica- 
tion in August required a full supply of the American 
brand of Mulberry Sellers faith. When he sought 
the future main depot of supplies and a quarter- 
master with two officer assistants and one clerk in 
an office referred the inquirer to such material as 
he would find in the little building across from the 
railway station as all there was to show at present, 
he understood how the group of engineers in their 
tents who were to provide acres of storage ware- 
houses, might not feel envious of the progress of 
other portions of the project. 

A vast field and a few tents were the start of the 
great aviation school which was to become a small 
city of hangars and barracks. We had then finished 
our first piece of railroad construction in France, 
a stretch of seven miles from a French railhead 
which was to bring material for building the school. 
A hundred miles away in the outskirts of a city 
we had set up our first field bakery, which was bak- 
ing for our troops the only white bread in France. 
It was not too good for them. Nothing is. 

The regular officer in charge rued the day when 
he had taken a course in baking to increase his all- 
around efficiency as an officer, for it destined him to 
be chief baker in France as long as his bread was 
good. His flour came from the distant ports where 
steamers waited their turn to unload for want of 
pier space; and heterogeneous piles of cargo had to 



A BLUE PRINT ERA 65 

be sorted with a view to forwarding the things for 
which the demand seemed the most vital. 

Each isolated part, hardly recognizable as having 
any connection with the other parts in the blue print 
scheme, was making some sort of a start, but halting 
to yield to the demands of others. The war was 
not one of blood and death, but of men working 
with naked hands in want of tools, crying for ma- 
terial to sources of supply three thousand miles 
away. Where a letter of requisition from British 
headquarters reached the War Office by mail the 
same day or the day after it was written, we must 
count on ten days to three weeks' postal transit or 
upon the cable, which garbled technical details. 
Where in England, France and Germany industries 
are concentrated in small national areas and pressing 
orders from the front can be filled promptly, a press- 
ing order from us might have to be sent from Chi- 
cago or Pittsburg to wait upon a pier for the next 
steamer, when, in the zealous haste, which makes for 
disorganization, to get that steamer started the arti- 
cle might be overlooked and left behind.. But the 
time was summer. Life in France was new to us as a 
compensation. Worse was yet to come with winter. 
We must be cheerful and keep on working. The 
first month's experience had taught even those of 
us without imagination that the project for supplying 
the army, let alone preparing it for battle, was an 
enterprise surpassing that of the Panama Canal in 
magnitude and difficulty. How we ever accom- 
plished it is a wonder that can be explained only 
by our energy, our spirit and our team play under a 
driving and understanding leadership, inspired by 
the cause. 



VII 



MANY PROBLEMS 

Problem of the Sam Browne belt — Problem of our uniform — Prob- 
lems as to driving our automobiles, regulations for civilian 
visitors, passports, etc. — The ambulance drivers — Final dis- 
position of the young Americans who had served France in 
her ambulance corps — Working to make our army a clean 
army — Outlining the field for the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., 
the Salvation Army and the K. of C. 

There must be consideration in this formative 
period not only for the big things, but for the 
seemingly little things which would have far-reaching 
influence in precedents and customs established and 
policies initiated. It is easy to write and order and 
easier to revoke it than to change the habit of con- 
duct which its provisions have inculcated in minds 
sensitive to first impressions in the early days of an 
organization. When our officers appeared in the 
Sam Browne belt it meant that all officers coming to 
Europe would have to wear it, which represented, 
once we had forty or fifty thousand officers in France, 
the expenditure of a great deal of leather when 
leather was scarce. 

Sam Browne's name was taken in vain with all 
the ardor of a strict economist by those who were 
responsible for the decision in favor of the belt. 
I think that the British army officer who was the 
originator of the belt, with its two shoulder straps j 

66 ' 



MANY PROBLEMS 67 

and supports for sword, canteen, glasses, revolver 
and other equipment in order to keep all from 
bouncing against the soft region below the ribs on 
long horseback rides in colonial campaigns would 
have been astounded himself that his invention, in 
a war in which officers did not carry swords, should 
be adopted by the French army as well as by the 
British as a substitute for the sword in indicating 
to soldiers the possession of the commissioned of- 
ficer's rank. It was regulation with our allies; and 
we made it regulation. 

Was our uniform suitable for a European cam- 
paign? A board considered the subject. Boards 
were considering many subjects, from systems of 
training to the style of American helmets. Officers 
grew weary of being taken away from their regular 
duties to serve on boards, which sometimes meant 
parliamentarism when action was important. 

Our close-fitting uniform, with its plaster-tight 
ornamental pockets, which made a fountain pen bulge 
out as if it were inserted under the skin, and its 
choke collar confounding the pulsations of the ca- 
rotid, was very smart-looking when it was pressed, 
but some of our officers, when they wanted room 
for a notebook, a purse, or their latest memorandum 
of requirements for beating the Germans in their 
branch, envied the loose-fitting British blouse with 
its lapel collar and pockets ample enough to carry 
a sandwich for luncheon, a map and a small library 
of notebooks. 

The fact that thousands of officers at home were 
already fitted with the choke collar and were learn- 
ing to do without pockets was one reason for not 



68 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

making the change. Another reason was a desire 
to retain a uniform already established as distinctly 
American. 

Should an officer be allowed to drive his car or 
must all driving be done by chauffeurs, as in the 
British army? What color were our cars to be 
painted? What regulations were to govern civilian 
visitors to our zone? What uniform were the Red 
Cross and Y. M. C. A. workers to wear? What 
kind of identity cards were officers and men to carry? 
Was every soldier to have his photograph on his 
card? The pass problem was vital, as it laid upon 
us a responsibility to our allies in safegtiarding 
military secrets against espionage. All such details 
must be considered in relation to the systems of the 
British and the French, who admitted that they 
might make many changes if they were starting the 
war afresh. 

No one problem was dissociated with another. 
The problem of control touched the State Depart- 
ment in Washington, which had charge of issuing 
passports to Americans who wished to visit France. 
It was decided that no one should come unless he 
would assist in some way in winning the war, which 
was construed to exclude the wives of army officers 
from following their husbands. A privilege granted 
to one wife must be granted to all, which might mean 
a colony of several thousand wives in Paris or else- 
where in the rear of the lines, who would have as 
much opportunity of seeing their husbands as the 
orders about leave would permit. Besides, Mr. 
Hoover, who counted the populations of Europe in 
daily rations, wanted to transport food for no one 



MANY PROBLEMS ^^9 

in Europe who might be fed at home, hopefully, in 
part, by her own war gardening. Of course some 
enterprising wife was found to enlist as a worker in 
the Red Cross. The husband of the lady who made 
the test case was enlightened by the information that 
any wife who succeeded in evading the regulation 
would find that her husband had been ordered home 
as the result of her enterprise. If there was any one 
thing every officer in France did not want, it was to 
be ordered home. 

What of the volunteer hospitals and the ambu- 
lance associations in France? Were they still to 
continue their service under French auspices or v/ere 
they to be absorbed into our army? Naturally, their 
workers wanted to serve under their ov/n flag, but 
they had an affection for their units v/hich they 
would have liked to keep intact. Centralization re- 
quired that the units should come into the fold 
and army homogeneit}' that they should lose their 
identity. 

The ambulance drivers had a distinctive uniform 
resembling the British; their work had been widely 
exploited; the Croix de Guerres they had won were 
the tokens of their heroism. For the most part they 
were young college men. Of course, the letters of 
recommendation requisite before a man's services 
v/ould be accepted were not alv/ays a guarantee that 
youth bound to the wars would bear itself v.-ith the 
propriety of a major general or a college dean when 
off duty. Some drivers had rich fathers and others 
v/ere dependent upon the allowance received from 
the associations. Character w^as subject to the usual 
human variations under European influences, with 



70 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

some false judgments formed because of the conduct 
of a few when they were on leave in Paris. If 
some men who arrived after our entry into the war 
were not of the standard previously set, this was 
no reflection on their predecessors, who had done a 
noble work whether called by adventure or solely by 
a desire to help France. 

All wanted to go into the army as commissioned 
officers, which was not an uncommon desire among 
the youth of America at this time. Before the asso- 
ciations were taken over, those whose period of en- 
listment was up appeared in numbers at headquarters 
with the wistfulness of youth thrilled by the sight of 
the flag at the entrance. There they met the dis- 
illusioning question, " Have you had any regular mili- 
tary training?" which made one sympathetic with 
their disappointment, as they spoke a faltering " No, 
sir." 

Instruction in ambulance driving did not include 
familiarity with the orders necessary to take a 
platoon of infantry out of its billets, march it to a 
field and put it through a morning's drill. That was 
only a part of the requirements, they found, if you 
were to pass the examinations to become an officer, 
unless you could qualify as a specialist in languages 
or in some other technical branch which would make 
you useful enough on the Staff to be made an ex- 
ception to the rule. 

A few entered the army through this back en- 
trance; others went to the artillery school at Fon- 
tainebleau as student officers; others continued to 
drive; others enlisted as privates, hoping to win the 
coveted bars from the ranks; and others returned 



MANY PROBLEMS 71 

home to try for later officers' training camps. It 
was a sad anomaly that most of them would have 
fared better in their ambitions to serve in our army 
if they had remained at home instead of making 
their Odyssey abroad, where their gallant service was 
one of the factors of material expression of our sym- 
pathy with the Allies in the days when we were offi- 
cially neutral. 

The time came when a youth appearing in the 
streets of Paris in the old ambulancier's uniform 
was accosted by a military policeman and told to 
report to the Provost Marshal's office, where he 
learned that if he were not going into the army or 
had not found other occupation he must return to the 
States. Thus, the uniform familiar to Parisians for 
two years disappeared from the streets; and the 
associations' reputation for the work they had done 
was not subject to any reflection due to unrepre- 
sentative idlers. 

There was hardship for some individuals; but the 
mills of democracy, organizing against the Prussian 
system under the directing hand of soldiers, must 
work hardship on many individuals. The regular 
army was in charge; and being regular it liked 
things regularized. Definite lines had to be drawn, 
cut where they would. Either an American in 
France was to be in uniform or he was not. If he 
were, then he was subject to army discipline. 

We were setting up a military kingdom in France 
for military purposes which must be responsible for 
all the details which make for efficiency and good 
conduct. These include morals; and the morals of 
youth who came to France were in the keeping of 



72 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the army, in the fullness of the authority which it 
had received from the people. An immoral army 
Is not a good army these days, which permits, in 
this connection, reference to that scourge of armies 
which afflicted oversea troops in the early days of 
the war, 

A division surgeon's talk to a gathering of our 
soldiers embodied the sound military ethics on the 
subject which were to be applied. He told them 
that it v/as their duty to the country as men, to their 
comrades and to society to live cleanly, but if they 
lacked self-control, precautions must be rigidly en- 
forced to protect others from contamination, to the 
end that the man whom his country had trained and 
sent abroad should not be in hospital as the result 
of his transgressions, while others who had not trans- 
gressed fought his battles for him. 

Paris of the boulevards we know is not the real 
Paris, which goes about its day's work sanely and 
normally; but to the imagination of some youth 
Paris is found to be the boulevards. What officer 
or man did not look forward to seeing Paris before 
his return? The very word has exercised a spell 
over the world for centuries. Who was not disap- 
pointed that his route of travel from port to training 
camp did nof pass through Paris? Who did not 
want to spend his leave there? 

Again, the stern direction that was aiming to 
mold a force for a stern business Interfered with 
desire. Neither officer nor man was to go to Paris, 
except on duty. When we had won battles the re- 
strictions might be relaxed. For the moment the 
business in hand was to prepare to win battles. The 



MANY PROBLEMS 73 

Puritan strain which unconsciously predominates in 
us came out strongly in France as well as at home, 
where the number of prohibition States was increas- 
ing and we were considering the abolition of the 
manufacture of all spirituous liquor and an officer 
might not have a cocktail in his own club, while the 
French continued to drink wine temperately with 
their meals and the English to take their ale ac- 
cording to the habit of generations. It was clear 
that General Pershing meant to have a moral army 
according to our strictest moral notions, and the prin- 
ciples established at the outset were not only to be 
an increasing element of our military strength, but 
also such as to react upon our citizenship after the 
war. 

A prescribed military regime may produce a 
healthy body without producing a healthy mind or 
developing that spirit requisite to determined and 
skillful action. While the Englishman fighting across 
the Channel from his hedgerows and the French- 
man fighting on his soil spent their leaves with their 
families, how vv^ere we to provide our men with a 
substitute for the influences of home? How enter- 
tain them? HoWjgive them ethical direction? How 
supplement the work of the Army Medical Corps in 
caring for the sick and wounded? 

All America which was not of draft age had put 
one hand on its purse and held up its other in its 
offers to help. Only say the word and we might 
have a dozen volunteer welfare workers for every 
soldier, which, incidentally, would be one way for 
the worker to reach France. The same policy of 
centralization which absorbed the ambulance asso- 



74 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

clatlons, acting in harmony with that of the War 
Department, turned to the Red Cross and the Y. M. 
C.*.A., the Knights of Cohimbus and the Salvation 
Army which were to be materialized as auxiliaries 
with a monopoly of welfare work, to avoid the con- 
fusion of overlapping humanitarian efforts without 
supervision when Mrs. Jones Is allowed to have her 
own hospital unit, Mr. Smith his own ambulance 
section or recreation hut and Mr. Robinson his own 
lecture course, with all other volunteers claiming the 
free field of equal privilege for their activities. 

Broadly, the division of functions was that the 
Red Cross looked after the sick and the wounded 
:ind the Y. M. C. A. and the Knights of Columbus 
looked after entertainment and lectures and supple- 
mented army supplies by their sales booths in their 
" huts," while the Salvation Army did personal 
work of the character with which it Is associated. 
All workers were required to be in uniform; all must 
have army passes; all were subject to the discipline 
of their organization under army direction. Each 
organization might take a map of France, lay out 
its programme and send out its own outposts of 
initial organization in keeping with army plans. 
Each had problems of Its own as acute In their way 
as the army's. 

If you asked in August, 19 17, about the size of 
our force In France, your information was subject 
to the qualification of " Inclusive or exclusive of the 
Red Cross and Y. M. C. A. personnel and news- 
paper correspondents." Every ship brought its 
quota of workers, of commissions to study the situa- 
tion and lecturers who were to appeal for funds 



MANY PROBLEMS 75 

when they returned. Anyone who had authority to 
go abroad in 19 17 was a marked man in his com- 
munity. He had a chance " to do something " and 
if you were not " doing something " you put your- 
self under your own personal suspicion of being a 
slacker. 

The shadow of tonnage lay across the desks of 
the chiefs of the Red Cross and the Y. M. C. A. 
as dark as across the C.-in-C.'s. Any arriving volun- 
teer who had brought with him a shipload of sup- 
plies would have been as welcome as a relief party 
to stranded polar explorers. Each had ideas about 
what should be done for our "boys"; America 
teemed with ideas. A dozen millionaires in the 
lobby of the Red Cross Building found that their 
money would not buy motor cars or trucks when 
none was for sale. Their helplessness, in view of 
their power at home, was a trifle diverting to some 
of us who were poor. Mostly they were eager and 
serious, but some wanted only a trip to the front 
and to look around before returning home; for war 
does not recast human nature. 

The Red Cross, though it had no American 
wounded to look after, did not want for a field 
where its workers and its funds could afford practi- 
cal aid in the humbler quarters of Paris or of other 
towns stricken by three years of war. While our 
army was as yet delivering no blows, they could 
help strengthen the morale of the French people to 
bear the strain of another winter. The Y. M. C. A, 
had its mission set in establishing huts at the scat- 
tered camps, where the soldiers might write letters, 
buy French chocolate and French cigarettes when 



76 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

American chewing-giim and cigarettes were wanting, 
hear the phonograph play its latest airs, and enjoy 
a debauch of the movies, or listen to serious talks 
by well-known speakers. 

How were the projectors of a great hut system 
to secure labor and material for building their huts 
when the army was struggling to get barracks built? 
They had to go out and " rustle " in the hope of 
getting something from the French which the army 
did not need or had overlooked. The building of 
one hut in the summer of 19 17 was a greater accom- 
plishment than the building of a score in the summer 
of 19 1 8. Association chiefs at home, in view of 
the speed with which the American training camps 
arose, might have thought that everybody who went 
to France was suddenly struck with sleeping sick- 
ness, judging by the slow progress made, had it not 
been for the numerous commissioners who returned 
home with reports about the obstacles European rep- 
resentatives had to overcome. 



VIII 



BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 



The new headquarters in the field — Hard work in crowded offices 
— The professional soldier's hours of duty — A hive with very 
few drones — Forming a General Staff — The German General 
Staff — Pershing says we must have a General Staff — Weeding 
out officers v/ith routine minds — Organizing the Staff as spe- 
cialists — Our opportunities for forming a General Staff as 
contrasted with the British — Promotions and new officers — 
Reserve officers. 



Everybody concerned was delighted at the thought 
of being nearer the troops and quit of Rue Con- 
stantine, which had been unreal as a headquarters, 
when early in September we moved to Lorraine. 
The phrase " Headquarters in the Field," as every- 
body knows, had ceased to apply on the Western 
front, with its stationary warfare, where com- 
manders settled down in chateaux to a regular rou- 
tine of existence and planted their gardens in the 
■^pring. Sir Douglas Haig has been in the same 
town for three years. Marshal Joffre was at Chan- 
tilly for two years. 

General Pershing, with only one division as yet 
in his command, might not count on any offensive 
which would require him to pack up and move at 
an early moment once he had left Paris and estab- 
lished himself with his army. He wanted to be at 
a point where his comm.anders could see him and 

77 



78 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

he could see the things most essential for his per- 
sonal supervision with the least possible travel. 
Requisite office space and living space for the per- 
sonnel of the growing central organization were 
available in the hotels of a famous summer resort; 
but because of their geographic location they had to 
yield to the more advantageous one of a town in the 
neighborhood of the training area and at the hub 
of a half-wheel of the southern part of the trench 
lines, about equidistant from a possible American 
sector anywhere from Alsace to Champagne, in the 
days before unity of command, resulting from the 
German offensive of March, 1918, scattered our 
divisions from Alsace to the North Sea. 

As the French staff offices reflect, along with a 
military atmosphere, an atmosphere of Paris busi- 
ness offices and the British one of London business 
offices, so ours were to reflect that of an office build- 
ing in New York or Chicago. In no detail more 
noticeably than in this did our national characteristics 
express themselves in the application to our needs of 
our observation of Allied methods. Where a French 
or a British Staff might scatter in different buildings, 
our fondness for concentration led us, through the 
influence of natural inclinations, to choose a group 
of old French barracks buildings as our offices, to 
the edification of our allies, who were ever curious 
about each revelation of American thoughts and 
habits. 

We like new things, we like brightness and we 
like change. To scour the venerable floors with 
steel filings, to whitewash and scrub, to set desks 
where the soldiers had had their bunks, to cut doors 



BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 79 

through old partitions and build new ones, to put in 
sanitary pkimbing and to start typewriters in their 
medley of orders, requisitions and memoranda were 
all in keeping with our national propensities, not to 
mention that the alterations were serving notice, in 
common with all our plans, that we were getting 
ready for a long war. That headquarters was as 
American as Private John Smith, of Nebraska, in 
his campaign hat and his broad-toed shoes; as Amer- 
ican as our tendency to tear down an old apartment 
house in order to build one with the latest improve- 
ments. Any corporation head at home would have 
approved the arrangements as being thoroughly 
businesslike, with the General's own office in the cen- 
tral room of the central building, his Chief of Staff 
across the hall and his principal subordinates all 
within easy summons. 

Who that has lived and worked at headquarters 
will ever forget that barracks square where the 
automobiles came and went, where the headquarters 
detachment drilled or batted up flies over the clean- 
swept space in the late afternoon; or the French 
and i\.merlcan flags at the entrance, or the sentry 
at the General's house down the street, who did not 
want for exercise when he had to salute each pass- 
ing member of the increasing commissioned per- 
sonnel? 

Those who served there in later days, when an 
American telephone girl would either give you any 
office In ten seconds or tell you that the wire was 
busy, or put you on long distance to Paris or a 
division headquarters or a port clear across France, 
and when the Signal Corps operators clicked off their 



8o AMERICA IN FRANCE 

telegrams with the speed of night press messages — 
well, they little know the troubles of the pioneers 
w^ho fought battles over that overtaxed French tele- 
phone and telegraph system without supplies. With 
everyone too busy to think of the troubles of others, 
those same pioneers did not quite realize the task 
that the quartermaster had in preparing the barracks 
for the reception of the Staff which was to leave 
Paris one day and be at work in headquarters the 
next. 

The Staff had ordered what it needed. But who 
was the quartermaster to order it from in turn? 
Generals and chiefs of sections, once they knew the 
location, sent on their own scouts to look for houses, 
not to mention cooks. Alas ! every general might 
not get the best house in town after the C.-in-C.'s. 
All officers must have billets and all field clerks must 
be provided for, and regulations covering all contin- 
gencies must be established. 

If a desk were not forthcoming for your office, 
then get a table. You must have something besides 
your knee to work on when you were dealing with 
your little portion of that project for an army of 
a million or two or three million men; and when 
any minute the General might call on you for a re- 
port on progress, surprise you by what he knew about 
what you were doing, perhaps surprise you in some 
other respects and perhaps send you out of the 
room with a word and a smile that made you think 
you v/ere serving your country well. Attach a 
printed card with your name to your desk or table 
in order that he who hurried through the halls might 
read and then try to use your influence to share 



BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 8i 

another officer's stenographer if you had not one of 
your own. 

Work was the gospel of Headquarters. Every 
morning as early as eight o'clock the movement of 
officers and clerks began along the road to the 
offices. An hour for luncheon; an hour and a half 
for dinner, and then back to the grind after dinner, 
sometimes until midnight! Each branch had its 
own mess, with a mess president engaged in im- 
parting secrets of American cuisine to a French cook. 
All the talk was shop; openly, irresistibly, shop. In 
one mess, artillery was going to win the war; in an- 
others, it was the engineers; in another, aviation; and 
in another, the Medical Corps or the Adjutant Gen- 
eral's department. Officers who at army posts may 
have had only four or six hours a day duty, such 
was the enthusiasm of meeting their new responsi- 
bilities, could now hardly detach themselves from 
the treadmill when the C.-in-C. gave orders that 
e\ eryone must have two hours' exercise a day. 

It is for war that the- professional soldier trains. 
War had come; great war. It was his hour of op- 
portunity; for service, for distinction, for promotion. 
The eagerness of the runner at the starting-post 
possessed him if he were young. A visitor who had 
an inclination to gossip as he approached a desk, 
received a handshake and a greeting^ a moment's 
attention to see if he had any business, and if he 
had not, the hand that gave the shake took up a 
paper from the " Incoming " basket. Thus, a phi- 
landerer who was' slow of appreciation might be 
dispatched from one desk to another until he had 
touched base at every desk in Headquarters without 



82 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

ever having a chance to discuss the war situation 
because everybody was too busy to think of the 
Kaiser's or President Wilson's job or anybody's job 
except his own. When the first news of the Itahan 
disaster was told to one officer, he merely looked 
up from his laden desk to exclaim: "That means 
Vv'e have all the more to do to win this war ! " 

There was waste motion, of course, and perhaps 
some men went through the pantomime of being 
busy in order to keep In fashion. Indeed, unless 
you had papers on your desk and wrote reports and 
orders you were under suspicion of being a drone 
in the hive. It rv"'qulred shrewd oversight to find 
out who was " getting something done " and who 
was just " doing something," which was one of the 
duties the C.-In-C. especially took unto himself. The 
question asked about every officer of senior rank 
was, "Is he an organizer?" Each thought that 
he was, whether he was or not, and there were 
certainly others who thought that he was not — a 
statement that must sound as familiar in the War 
Department as at G. H. Q. in France. 

The purpose of all this effort, aside from getting 
on with the business in hand, was to create a Gen- 
eral Staff on European lines adaptable to our needs 
in France, which included at the same time the search 
for who was capable of appreciating the character 
of a General Staff as a first requirement for assist- 
ing in its creation. All men with any military under- 
standing had agreed In theory that we ought to 
have a Staff. We had started the nucleus of one 
after the Spanish War and It had remained a nucleus 
which was consulted, but little considered. Some 



BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 83 

strong personality, sometimes an adjutant general 
rather than the Chief of Staff, became predominant 
as we know; while the different departments were 
inclined to be compartmental in the administration 
routine of our small army. 

The significance of the continually heralded fact 
that the German General Staff through its organ- 
ization had been the driving and guiding force of 
German military success had not been altogether 
understood by our public. A woman who associated 
it very properly with something sinister and wicked, 
that favored atrocities and ruthlessness, said to me, 
" They say we ought to have a Staff. Hasn't that 
German Staff caused all the trouble?" It would 
have caused the Allies Infinitely more trouble if there 
had not been a skillful French Staff which could 
hold its own against the German Staff. 

To the soldier in the trenches a Staff is often the 
symbol of some secret and distant power, responsible 
for all plans and orders, of which he is the pawn. 
If he wants supplies, if his attack fails, subordinates 
say that It is due to bad " Staff work," which fixes 
the responsibility In current phrase while it proves 
the importance of an efficient General Staff. 

Every Staff makes mistakes. The number of its 
mistakes is reckoned in the lives of soldiers. Its 
blunders mean piles of dead, with no object gained. 
The tribute which every professional soldier pays to 
the German General Staff is born of the admiration 
which aspires to have an organization as capable 
as that in fighting for our principles In the chess 
play against the enemy and his principles, when the 
question of which set of principles shall survive must 



S4 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

be settled by violence. It is the complex organiza- 
tion of the Staff which keeps touch with the location 
of the enemy's units or his battle order, thus fore- 
seeing his plans; which takes from him his latest 
development in tactics for prompt application to your 
own ends; which lays out the plans of attack; which 
strives to be ahead of him in improvements in arms 
or in methods; which coordinates all branches, all 
parts as well as morale and purpose, into a homo- 
geneous force which shall gain by the skill of organ- 
ization the greatest result at the least cost in life. 
Its tentacles reach into the enemy's country; into 
the psychology of his troops no less than of. your 
own. It should be argus-eyed and multiple-fingered. 
All studies in efficiency, all measures for saving time 
and lowering working costs and for increasing out- 
put by concentration and labor-saving devices are 
the business counterparts of the functions of a Gen- 
eral Staff. 

A good Staff tries to buy in the cheapest and sell 
in the dearest market; and the coin of the market 
is casualties. If it yields ground it aims to make 
the enemy pay heavily for his success; if it attacks, 
it aims to pay as little as possible for its gains, think- 
ing always in the terms of the transaction as a whole 
in much the same way that a department store which 
cuts prices in a drive on one article as an incentive 
to profitable sales in another. Russia was Ger- 
many's cheapest market. Probably she got four or 
five Russians for every German soldier she ex- 
pended. 

Both the French and German Staffs before the 
war held to the opinion that a competent Staff could 



BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 85 

not be created during a war. It must be the product 
of years of training in time of peace, which accumu- 
lated a body of experts who would have such a 
start over any group of beginners as would enable 
them to keep the lead. The British, who had a 
nucleus, had to create a system for directing a big 
army and they did it, though the task was costly. 
We also must create a Staff — must is a strong per- 
suader when General Pershing speaks the word. 
He had been on our General Staff in Washington in 
its early days and appreciated the value of a Staff. 

As the authority was his to build an organization 
to suit his purposes, those old barracks buildings 
were to witness a development which would have 
been startling to some retired generals had they 
viewed it in a club corner in Washington. No one 
wanted to follow the model of the German Staff 
system in its diabolical tendencies and secret proc- 
esses for gratifying a lust of power, which had 
allowed the order of one man to plunge the world 
into the vortex of hell; but we did want an organ- 
ization which should make the most of the brains 
and the spirit in us for battle action, to prevent free 
men of our flesh and blood and traditions from being 
needlessly sacrificed by the superior technique of the 
enemy, using servile men as its pawns. 

Our army organization at home had administered 
posts and territorial divisions. It had little reason 
for considering any force larger than a battalion as 
a mobile body which required tactical direction in the 
presence of an enemy. This kind of administration 
developed routine minds. Step by step, promotions 
brought the seniors in rank to the top to sign the 



$6 AMERICA IX FRANCE 

orders of routine. Younger men had worn out their 
enterprise hy the time they had brigadiers' stars on 
their shoulders. 

With only six thousand officers In our regular 
army, each having a number which advanced every 
time a higher number on the list was retired, If the 
hundreds of thousands of our youth were not to be 
led to sacrifice In the field, if we were to learn the 
first principles of the technique of buying In the 
cheapest market and selling in the dearest, we must 
make use of those officers, whatever their place on 
the list, who had been marked among their fellows 
for exceptional ability or at least for exceptional 
energy. It was not a time for considering the sus- 
ceptibilities of Major General X or Brigadier Gen- 
eral Z, though their hairs were white and their 
careers spotless. Yet they were there. They had 
the rank and they would not have been human if 
thev had not been tenacious In the hour oi oppor- 
tunity of the rights of seniority, which had been the 
goal of ambition gained, under the old regime, only 
by the long service to their credit. As Roman 
veterans pointed to their wounds in the Forum, so 
our elder officers would state the number of years 
they had been in the army. 

To put it simply: One section of the new Staff 
looked after transport: another, supplies; another, 
Information: another trained the soldier and an- 
other directed him in battle. Or, to put It more 
elaborately, one group of experts had charge of 
bringing troops and supplies overseas and oi regu- 
lating tonnage and tonnage replacements: another, 
of supplying the army with all Its requirements, from 



BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 87 

wagons to motors, with all that the soldier eats and 
wears and all the weapons he uses in battle and the 
bandages for his wounds; another, of the training 
of the soldiers and the officers in the field and in 
all the schools of specialism, being responsible for 
coordinating all the processes to the desired end of 
maximum efficiency of man-power and material. 
Another group kept a check on all possible sources 
of enemy espionage, supplied the maps required by 
our forces, kept informed of the enemy's disposi- 
tions and his morale, sought out his secrets and 
analyzed all sources of information into minute re- 
ports for still another group which were experts 
in the handling of troops, responsible for troop 
movements and dispositions, for all strictly military 
operations and all tactical arrangements and all 
strategic plans for battle. The Sections were known 
as G-i, G-2, G-3, G-4 and G-5, and taken altogether 
asthe"G's." 

There was nothing new in the general outline of 
this system. Founded upon the experience of all 
great armies, it was something as proven by test 
as the system of president, vice-president, board of 
directors and general manager for a corporation. 
Accomplishment, as In everything else In this world, 
resolved itself back to the men who had the work 
to do. Because a man was young, ambitious and 
energetic did not mean that he was fit for responsi- 
bility. His seniors might be his superiors In judg- 
ment and energy. The Staff system was right but 
it would fail If personnel failed. 

Each group had its representatives In the corps 
and divisions in touch with the chief of staff of 



88 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

section, as the head of each group was called, who 
must be a trained soldier in directing toward mili- 
tary ends the efforts of the great railroad builder, 
lawyer, surgeon, engineer, chemist or contractor 
from civil life. Every mile of track laid, every pier 
built, every warehouse constructed and its location, 
every blow of a hammer must fit into the general 
plan. 

The chiefs of the G's met at ten o'clock in the 
morning with the chief of the General Staff in his 
office, where they made their reports, conferred and 
received instructions; and later they held meetings 
of the subordinates of their own sections. Through 
the Chief of Staff and through the Commander-in- 
Chief, this " brain trust," as the line called it, had 
its policies executed when they were approved; and 
thev might be colonels, while the Surgeon General, 
the Quartermaster General, or the Chief of Ord- 
nance responsible for administration were brigadier 
generals. 

A black stripe around the sleeve and a star on 
the collar were the insignia of this inner cabinet of 
suggestive and creative authority, which the line re- 
garded with something of the feelings that a mining 
engineer in a distant camp in Mexico has for the 
New York office contingent. 

" When I go up to the front I put my arms behind 
me so they won't see my black stripes," said one Staff 
officer, " but when I'm around Headquarters I hold 
them up for everybody to see." 

If a Staff officer appears in the trenches, the occu- 
pants, who are the objects of his organization, do 
not mind a little extra artillerv fire for his edifica- 



BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 89 

tion. Though a Staff position might be considered 
a " cushy job " by the unknowing, it was not sought; 
or, if it were, the seeker was usually unfitted for it. 
The ambition of each chief of section was to get 
command of a regiment or a brigade, or, at least, 
to see battle service of some kind; and General 
Pershing proposed that this ambition should be 
gratified. 

Regardless of the practice of other European 
staffs, which held to the principle that each man 
should stick to the post for which he was best quali- 
fied, he established the principle of rotation, which 
meant that no group of men would order others 
into battle without tasting battle as subordinates 
themselves. His idea, as he expressed it, was that 
every officer should " know troops." The first indi- 
cation that a Staff officer was becoming remote on 
that subject sent him to a school where the training 
was in no wise theoretical. Thus, a chief of section 
might find himself commanding a regiment under the 
chief of staff of a division, perhaps his junior, who 
was applying to him the methods of an organization 
which he had helped to devise. 

In our task of building a General Staff for han- 
dling a large army in action, with officers of the 
French Staff as our intimate instructors, we had 
some advantages which the British lacked, though 
these very advantages implied certain disadvan- 
tages. The British were plunged into the thick 
of the fighting within less than three weeks after 
Britain entered the war; and their Staff development 
was in the course of the relentless fighting at Mons, 
on the Aisne and in the Ypres salient. They applied 



90 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

their lessons reeking from trenches bloody with mur- 
derous losses. The Allied armies formed a wall 
behind which we had time to study both French and 
British systems; and what we had learned could be 
applied in the quiet sectors which we occupied at 
first as a preparation for active sectors. 

But I am getting ahead of my chronology, which 
is September, when only the nuclei of the sections 
were forming, and their authority was in the in- 
ceptive stage, and when departmental system still 
held, with all requisitions going for approval to the 
Adjutant General's department, snow-bound with 
papers, which, later, was to be restricted to records 
and statistics and cognate details. The Staff sec- 
tions waited as all the armed forces of the United 
States waited, upon officer personnel from the train- 
ing camps at home. A harbinger of the creation of 
the National Army, as the pupils got their commis- 
sions, was a renewed outburst of promotions for 
regular officers. 

It was an era of universal congratulations as old 
comrades met in the barracks square and chatted 
about the rank and assignments of friends in the 
service. Leaves fell on shoulders which had borne 
bars and eagles came to rest, until stars should take 
their places, on shoulders that had borne leaves. 
Brigadier generals were becoming quite common 
and even major generals were appearing with a 
frequency that made them less awesome. The real 
distinction, as a chief of section said, was with the 
youngster who was the only second lieutenant at 
headquarters for awhile. He felt quite important 
about it until a small consignment of second lieu- 



BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 91 

tenants appeared, when he was Interested to know 
whether or not any of them " ranked " him. 

More regular officers were arriving from home 
and many reserve officers, erect, clear-eyed and sol- 
dierly from the physical regime they had undergone, 
were hurried to Europe because of special fitness for 
some branch of Staff work. Chiefs of sections and 
departments, as they received congratulations, an- 
nounced that they had new assistants with the glee 
that goes with a prospective Increase of business. 
The newcomers, as they were given tables in the 
crowded rooms and settled down to learn their 
duties, looked forward to the time when they should 
have a tour with the French and British armies 
for instruction at first hand from veterans. The 
French mission in the house at the gate had these 
assignments to consider among its other numerous 
responsibilities in keeping the course of Allied rela- 
tions running smoothly, ranging from questions of 
policy, which brought the chief of mission to call 
on the General or the Chief of Staff, to claims by 
French civilians, tangles in billeting and requisitions 
and locating lost passes; from difficulties due to too 
much initiative on the part of our officers in their 
search for material to Interference with French cus- 
toms by an American major. 

Later, the major generals commanding our new 
divisions at home and high ranking officers began 
to arrive on tours of observation. They had to be 
Indoctrinated in Staff methods and taken to visit the 
front where they might see In practice what they 
knew only in theory, in order that they might return 
to America better equipped for their work in co- 



92 AMERICA IX FR.\NCE 

ordinating the preparations at home ^YIth the 
preparations in France. Not to mention its tax on 
the hospitality of the French and the British armies, 
" indoctrination " became a byword which made 
bureau chiefs lecturers-at-large at the same time that 
they were schoolmasters of their own personnel. 

Two worlds, regular and reserve, existed in the 
one common world of effort. The regulars were as 
a family whose numbers had known one another 
through the army list, if at one time or another they 
had not served together, as they usually had. Their 
talk. Avhen they met was suggestive of the alumni 
gathering of a college class. They spoke a language 
of their own which was the product of their environ- 
ment. The reserves could become acquainted by 
asking one another from what college they were 
graduated; and possibly they would find that they 
had friends in common. 

Among the elder men were many who had been 
chiefs in their own world, used to riding in their 
own cars from fine homes to comfortable offices. 
They got billets of small rooms without baths and 
were assigned to some of the small tables in a Staff 
section to do clerical work under a young regular 
ofl^cer as their immediate superior, who wished that 
their training had Included more instruction in army 
methods in which the old army clerks had an ex- 
pertness that was another contributing factor in re- 
ducing the sense of importance of the reserve officers 
who wanted to serve their country In time of war. 

But they had their moments of consolation, for 
army forms were subject to a fluctuating process of 
change as the result of the C.-in-C.'s demand for 



BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION 93 

reform before finality was reached in the operations 
of subordinates. It was none other than a chief of 
section who exclaimed one day: " What is the right 
form for preparing a telegram now, anyway?" 
Or, as another Staff officer said: "You find us in 
another process of reorganization. It takes time. 
The old system is well intrenched, but we took, an- 
other salient yesterday, and the C.-in-C. says we are 
to dig in and hold our gains." 



IX 



FAITH IN THE RIFLE 

The road to the training nrea — Plans transformed into camps — 
Slow growth of barracks — A modern Valley Forge in Lor- 
raine — The Marines again — The reorganized First Division — 
British instructors as well as French — The rifle not an obso- 
lete weapon for Americans — Advanced training — A dress 
rehearsal before Marshal Jotfre. 

It was always with the joy of spirit and body re- 
leased from bondage that I left the mental sweatshop 
of those barrack, offices for the open where vigorous 
men, after the day's drill, slept soundly without any 
fits of wakefulness over problems that lav between 
" incoming '" and " outgoing " baskets on a desk. 
The soldier has only to obey commands and counter- 
commands, whether they are foolish or wise. He 
drills; he marches; he fights — and offers his life at 
the hazard. 

There was no road in France which I knew better 
than that leading from Headquarters into the training 
area. The faces of all the women, or their children, 
who opened the railroad gates were familiar. The 
husbands and fathers were away at the war, or were 
dead on " the field of honor." There was the woman 
who was always smiling in all weathers, sturdy 
enough to have lifted the gate by main strength if 
necessarv; the verv businesslike woman who received 
your thanks with a dignified acknowledgment, and 

94 



FAITH IN THE RIFLE 95 

one woman who would never smile — a most unusual 
human being in Trance. Perhaps the bitterness of 
war had settled into her soul. 

The road had its clear straight stretches, but 
mostly it was Avinding with the purpose of avoiding 
the wooded hills, always in sight, and picking up 
various villages on the way. I knew it in summer 
before the crops were harvested and it revealed 
only the life of the villages, with groups of German 
prisoners, regarding an American with stolid curi- 
osity, or groups of French territorials, who were 
beginning to erect Adrian barracks, and little camps 
of Signal Corps men who were putting up the poles, 
for an American telegraph line; and, in autumn, 
when the fierce winds were blowing the dying leaves 
off the trees and some of the barracks in their un- 
painted wood ceased to be unattractive blots on the 
background of finished landscape and old villages 
as they were occupied by men in khaki, looking 
strange and unacclimatized; and, in winter, when 
snow lay on the drill grounds and still more villages 
and barracks were occupied by battalions which were 
still later arrivals from home. 

Thus I had glimpses of the succeeding stages of 
development of a plan which I had seen expressed on 
a map with red diagrams resembling protoplasms 
in their irregularity of form. Each was to be a 
training camp for one division, its cabbage, carrot 
or potato shape the result of combining open spaces 
as drill grounds with a group of villages and 
barracks with shelter enough to accommodate a 
division. There was something reassuring in the 
number of the protoplasms which suggested that 



96 AMERICA IX FRANCE 

the programme of troop transport might be kept. 
The divisions were promised; General Pershing pro- 
posed to be ready for them if the War Department 
made a spurt and caught up with its schedule. 

There must be barracks enough for infirmaries 
at least; and the more men we had living in bar- 
racks the more comfortable they would be and the 
better under control. The want of labor and ma- 
terial hampered us as usual. We might not be able 
to provide the French with something that we 
thought would materialize from overseas, which, in 
turn, prevented their carrying out their part of the 
plan. 

After the ground was broken for barrack sites, 
manv days might elapse before a motor truck began 
piling up the standardized sections beside the road 
and then days might elapse before they were 
touched again because the labor that was to put 
them together had been required on some more 
pressing detail. Erecting an Adrian barrack was 
as simple as erecting a child's house of blocks. It 
placed no architectural responsibility on the builder 
once he knew the system for assembling the parts 
into the structure which is familiar in all the camps 
in France. After the war, I imagine that these bar- 
racks will be moved to the ruined villages as tem- 
porary shelter for the returned inhabitants, while 
starting business again or recovering shell-pestled 
fields to tillage. 

The French ofiicer, who had the task of making 
the map in the office of the American general com- 
manding the area into reality, gave up making prom- 
ises based on promises made to him and was doing 



FAITH IN THE RIFLE 97 

his best for sixteen hours a day. He did not build 
as many barracks as he planned. On our part, we 
did not catch up with our troop programme until 
spring. Somehow, we were to get through that Lor- 
raine winter whose recollection will be as distinct 
to our pioneer divisions as their battles. In repay- 
ing the French for assisting us in the Revolution 
we went through the modern counterpart of a Valley 
Forge^which should further cement the friendship of 
the two peoples. 

After having been drilled all summer, the regi- 
ment of Marines which had come with the first 
convoy in June was withdrawn from the First 
Division. Although this was most depressing to 
every officer and man in that it meant that they 
would not be among the first in the trenches, the 
service to which they were assigned was in one 
sense a compliment to qualities which are as insepa- 
rable from them as their gallantry. The Marines 
have traditions, associated with ships' orderliness, 
which are kept up by competent veteran non-com- 
missioned officers, that make them models in sol- 
dierly deportment. An isolated squad or platoon, 
from the very nature of their training, keeps to 
form when doing guard duty or police work. Pride 
of corps sticks to a Marine sentry or messenger 
though he is separated from any commanding officer. 

From all directions our widespread organization 
was calling for details of this dependable character, 
and the Marines were chosen to meet the demands. 
Marines acted as couriers across the Channel; they 
guarded our construction projects and our property; 
kept order on piers and in laborers' quarters; acted 



98 AMERICA IX FRANCE 

as police in Paris and at the ports, carrying out 
Provost Marshal's instructions with polite firmness 
in keeping with the impeccable neatness of their uni- 
forms. In their hearts they were wroth, but they 
were too proud to allow it to influence their correct 
deportment. 

Somewhere between the duties of the army and 
navy the sea-soldiers who had survived from the 
days of the three-deckers have kept a place for 
themselves. In strict military logic they have a 
place neither in a modern navy organization nor in 
a modern army organization. From time to time 
efforts have been made to legislate them out of 
existence, but they have the trick in practice of 
keeping a place for themselves on the quarter-deck 
and making one in all expeditions overseas owing 
to the friends they gain and their conduct whether 
charging machine guns or policing an ammunition 
dump. They think well of themelves in order to 
insure that the rest of the world will think the same. 

Talk to them of being absorbed into the armv 
and they exhibit a willingness to be agreeable by 
absorbing the army if that will serve the purpose 
of doing away with the anomaly of a separate mili- 
tary organization in France, with its own recruiting 
and replacement system and pay department. They 
had to go into the army uniform under duress of 
necessity when no material for their own forest 
green was forthcoming, but though in khaki they 
kept their globe and anchor insignia on their collars. 
When I asked a Marine sentry in front of one of 
our army offices in Paris how he liked his work, he 
said: 



FAITH IN THE RIFLE 99 

" Very well, sir. It will fit me for a job after 
the war. I can wear a striped waistcoat and brass 
buttons and open cab doors in front of a New York 
hotel." 

His ingrowing misery lest he be kept at this peace- 
ful assignment was natural but groundless. He 
would have his fill of fighting; for the Marines were 
kept in mind as one of the factors in the consumma- 
tion of a plan. 

After the withdrawal of the Marines, the First 
Division was brought up to full strength as a com- 
plete regular division composed of the i6th, i8th, 
26th and 28th regiments of infantry and the First 
Artillery Brigade of the 5th, 6th and 7th artillery 
regiments. Were they never going into the trenches? 
the men asked. Experts said that they were ready; 
and they were certain that they were. Generals 
Petain, Castelnau and Foch had inspected them and 
pronounced glowing opinions. President Poincare 
had seen them march past in review in his honor and 
had spoken eloquently to their officers. 

" Wait until Joflire inspects us! " one soldier said. 
*' I'll bet that will be the real signal that we are 
going in." 

Another French infantry division had come to 
take the place of the chasseurs alpins in coaching 
the First. A group of British instructors had ap- 
peared to add their vigorous training in certain 
specialties, particularly the bayonet in which the 
British excelled. Not being embarrassed by any 
fear of misunderstandings due to language difficul- 
ties they had less reason for being as polite as the 
French even if it had been in their nature. 



lOO 



AMERICA IN FRANCE 



" I thought that I told you to dig: a trench last 
night," said a British officer to a young lieutenant. 
'* 1 hope you don't call this one." 

'* Vhc men were tired and the ground was hard." 
explained the lieutenant. 

"No excuses! Rotten work!" was the reply, 
which the young lieutenant thought sounded very 
homelike. 

^Yhile as beginners with claims to experience, we 
strove to learn all the lessons ot our teachers. Gen- 
eral Pershing, the final and responsible instructor 
and inspector, insisted upon a single feature which 
was in keeping with our own armv traditions. It 
was that our men should learn how to shoot. Three 
vears ot trench warfare had had a pronounced 
intUience on the tacticians of the Western front. In 
the course of digging an endless ma/e oi trenches 
perhaps thev had dug themselves into certain mental 
ruts. 

Infantrymen fought from trench to trench. After 
going over the top trom tiieir own trenches, when 
thev gained an objective in their attack, they settled 
down to organize the enemy's trenches they had 
taken. Armies lived in trenches, thought in trenches 
and had become habituated to the use of the hand 
grenade in defense and offense to the neglect of the 
rifle, which some extravagant reports had declared 
an obsolete weapon. 

The fact that the man in the trench rarely had 
a target for his marksmanship was only anotiier 
proof of the value of the rifle. It was a possible 
accurate shot from a rifle that kept heads below the 
parapet; that made you take to a communication 



FAITH IN THE RIFLE loi 

trench five hundred yards or more back of your 
front line; that sent a thrill of apprehension down 
the backbone of a man scouting No Man's Land 
as the German flares lighted up the shell-torn area 
around him. If infantry had to " dig in " in the 
'•pen, rifle fire was a controlling factor in mapping 
.iieir line. The retreat from Mons was covered 
by the thin lines of British infantry, which had been 
taught how to shoot, coolly pouring an accurate fire 
into the advancing Germans. 

If confidence in his bayonet impels a soldier for- 
ward to close quarters in a charge, good marksm.an- 
ship makes the soldier in offense and defense hold 
fast in his confidence that he knows how to make 
every bullet count. Even the British had strayed 
from the lessons of Mons and the first battle of 
Ypres, where, outnumbered five to one, British regu- 
ular reserves, having no grenades, knowing nothing 
of their use, stuck to their trenches through the 
artillery preparation with the survivors from the 
torrent of shell fire stopping the German charges 
with their rifle fire. Jackson's sharpshooters at New 
Orleans were not out of date except in their smooth- 
bores; and never can be as long as a soldier carries 
as his own arsenal a weapon which, as he lies hidden 
in a thicket or under cover of a redoubt, will send 
a messenger of death farther than any ball or ex- 
plosive he can throw. 

When reports became current that Allied soldiers 
had become so addicted to the grenade habit that 
they watched Germans in flight at a distance of three 
or four hundred yards in the open without shooting 
at them, the tacticians of the Western front realized 



I02 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

that It was time to look beyond trench walls to some 
of the tirst principles of war. Before this. General 
Pershing had sent word to Washington saying that 
'* thorough Instruction and range practice as pre- 
scribed In our small arms firing manual was neces- 
sary " in our training camps, and that he wanted 
every one of our new soldiers to be an excellent shot, 
which was something the soldier might learn at 
home, and even better there because of the difficulty 
of securing good ranges In the thickly populated 
areas of France. 

I have In mind an occasion when he was present 
at a " critique '' which followed the execution of a 
problem ordered by him at short notice to be car- 
ried out under his eye. Our battalions had advanced 
in the customary waves to the taking of positions 
under artillery preparation according to the estab- 
lished principles of the limited objective. They had 
bombed the enemy out of strong points; "mopped 
up " the enemy trenches which they had taken; estab- 
lished their machine guns for the defense of the 
ground they had gained and performed all other 
details in a most satisfactory manner. 

Our battalion commanders, who had worked out 
their own systems of attack after the problem had 
been set for them, gathered with the company of- 
ficers concerned to hear what that very erect, spare 
and politelv incisive French general and his stafF 
experts and their own General Pershing had to say 
about the way they had done their work. Each 
officer reviewed his plan in the lla:ht of results, an- 
swered questions and awaited criticism. 

There was all the simplicity and dlgnlts' of the 



FAITH IN THE RIFLE 103 

proceedings of the French academy in this pedagogic 
council on the science of war on a hillside slashed 
with practice trenches with the countryside utterly 
quiet on a misty day as veteran experts brought 
home to our minds the situations which we should 
have had to consider if any actual enemy had been 
against us. Some of those strong points reduced 
in theory would not have been reduced in fact; our 
soldiers instead of lying about at ease, their ma- 
neuver over, would now be in the thick of a counter 
barrage. 

It was not the first time they had received such 
intimations; and their answering thought was that 
they wanted to be done with mimicry and have a 
chance at the real thing. As an old sergeant said : 
"The way to learn to fight is to learn to fight," 
which is a trick phrase, of course. Men who have 
not learned anything about fighting before they go 
into a battle sometimes survive if they start early 
from the field and run fast enough. 

As the autumn drew on, the French people, in the 
reaction of their false expectations from the great 
ado made over the landing of the first expedition 
in France, began to wonder if we were ever going 
into the trenches. Did the flights of officers in auto- 
mobiles, our urgent efforts in scouring France for 
material, our scattered start in the building of depots 
and our elaborate plans signify that we meant to 
make only an industrial effort? Surely we were a 
strange people. 

Families who had hoped that our youth would 
release the older Frenchmen in the trenches, bring- 
ing father and husband home for the winter, took 



I04 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

a personal interest In the question. Many inferences 
might be drawn in gossip behind the curtains of 
censorship under the inspiration of secret German 
propaganda. If we Avere really eager to fight 
wouldn't we have sent in some of our units mixed 
with the British and French long ago? asked be- 
spectacled Germans in Switzerland who said that 
America was only " pluffing." 

But the French class of 191 8, as I have noted, 
had a year of training before going into the 
trenches. Some of the men of the First Division 
had been in uniform only six months. A few thou- 
sand American soldiers more or less In the line were 
immaterial in the military calculation which em- 
braced the millions of the British and French armies 
on the Western front. One division could not take 
over a permanent sector. It might be the object 
of an attack, which would put it hors de cojubat as 
any one of hundreds of the best divisions of the 
European armies had been in a few hours when the 
enemy chose to concentrate upon it in overwhelming 
force; and, in that case, where would be our trained 
division or divisions for replacement? Where would 
be General Pershing's independent command which 
he was under instructions to establish? 

The soldier's guess was right. We went Into the 
line shortly after Father Joftre visited the training 
camp. That sturdy soldier, rich in military wisdom, 
his fame secure, who had summoned our soldiers to 
Europe, was a more striking figure in a more striking 
scene than on an occasion when the multitudes 
cheered him at home as he saw our soldiers, ready 
now to take their part. Yet before the curtain went 



FAITH IN THE RIFLE 105 

up on America in the line, there was another dress 
rehearsal when the First Division had a period of 
three days serving in practice trenches under condi- 
tions like the real thing, in the drizzling cold rain 
that wet the men to the skin and flooded dugouts. 



X 



SOME FIRSTS FOR THE FIRST 

The First Division starts for the front — Secrecy of the move — A 
quiet sector — Apprehensions of the natives at the appearance 
©f our troops — Our presence might mean fighting — Gradual 
introduction to trench warfare — The first shot — The first relief 
for the trenches — The first prisoner — The first wounded man — 
The first German raid — Our first dead — The three graves at 
Bathlemont — Life in the trenches — At the gun pits. 

Athletes who know the meaning of a break In 
training will appreciate what the order to move 
meant to the men of our First Division. They 
hailed any change of scene from the drill grounds 
which had seen the hardest work of their lives; but 
there was a pull at the heartstrings as they parted 
with friends In the villages where they had been 
billeted for four months who knew, as they knew, 
without being told, that they were going into the 
line. 

Many a romance was thus broken off; many chil- 
dren were to miss their big playfellows in khaki. 
The old men and women felt that a world of vigor- 
ous young life was slipping away from them. There 
would be no more gifts of white bread for family 
nlatters. Marie would have no more lessons In 
" Eenglish " from George " Smeeth " of " Meesee- 
seepee." George was really from Alabama, but 
changed his State in order to hear Marie say " Mee- 

106 



SOME FIRSTS FOR THE FIRST 107 

seeseepee." If he had been from Georgia he might 
have told her that all men from Georgia were named 
George. French villagers get much miscellaneous 
information from our soldiers about our United 
States. 

The men of the First had only a short journey 
on trains, a journey which was kept very mysterious. 
They did not know the name of the town where they 
alighted until they looked at the station sign; and 
that did not enlighten them particularly, as only 
officers carried a map. They were not supposed to 
ask where they were going. What did it matter 
as long as they were going? France was France 
to them, without geographic distinctions. They 
were marched off to other new billets, where they 
removed their packs and, having made themselves 
at home, took a look around and began striking up 
new acquaintances. 

They had seen guns on the move before, guns 
with French gunners who fired barrages for the prac- 
tice maneuvers; but these they now saw passing 
along the road had Americans mounted on the horses 
and the caissons. It was their first glimpse of the 
division's artillery which had come from its training 
camp to join up with the Infantry. The batteries 
settled in family groups in the villages, assigned to 
them; and the whole division awaited further orders. 
In due course, someone would tell each gunner and 
each infantryman what to do next and then what 
next until they arrived at their destination. 

The strictest secrecy about the movement was 
enjoined, although the sector beyond EInvIlle chosen 
for our Introduction to actual trench warfare was 



io8 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

about the quietest on the Western front. Since the 
great battle of 1914 it had seen no action of account; 
and. indeed, since the bloody contest of Hartmanns- 
weilerkopf in Alsace had subsided, all the line from 
Pont-a-JNIousson to the Swiss border had been tran- 
quil. Neither side had anything to gain here by 
attack, a pacific trench existence being as customary 
in this sector as nagging malice was in the Ypres 
salient, where the holding of a mile of front was 
a more costly business than the holding of ten or 
fifteen or twenty miles in Lorraine. Flanders in 
19 1 5, Verdun and the Somme in 19 16, Passchendaele 
in 1917 were death; and through all three campaigns 
Lorraine was relatively a holiday. 

In places the lines were more than rifle range 
apart. Occasional patrols from both sides kept 
touch with the situation and permanent outposts 
maintained a requisite contact. Each side sent over 
a few shells every day. To increase the number 
was to draw more fire from the adversary; and 
then reprisals following on reprisals might develop 
a state of uncomfortable activity and waste of am- 
munition which was required for more active 
sectors. Didn't tired soldiers want some rest be- 
tween battles? A German division and a French 
division, which had been mercilessly pounding and 
sniping and raiding each other at Verdun or in 
Champagne, if they happened to face each other in 
Lorraine a week later relaxed as pugilists relax be- 
tween rounds. When they recovered their strength 
thev would turn violent again directly they met in a 
violent sector. 

Farmers tilled their fields close up to the Lor- 



SOME FIRSTS FOR THE FIRST 109 

raine trenches. French olHcers had leave to run in 
to Nancy, or German otiicers to run in to Metz, for 
recreation after their survival from fierce battles 
elsewhere. Mutual consideration also in some places 
prevented the bombardment of villages in the back 
area where the weary battalions were billeted. 
Aeroplanes kept watch of any signs of a concentra- 
tion which would indicate that the other side con- 
templated breaking faith by a real attack. The 
occasional trench raid necessary for further informa- 
tion and the identification of units was conducted 
in a strictly economical manner. 

Our appearance disturbed the villagers and 
farmers of the countryside lest we should start the 
war to going again, and their apprehension threw 
some light on the reasons for the extraordlnarv pre- 
cautions about secrecy. Weren't we Americans? 
Weren't we going into the line for the first time? 
There was no telling what kind of a reception the 
Germans might plan for us. Gallic imagination, 
not to mention American imagination, indulged in 
possibilities. 

*' The Germans are waiting for us. This is the 
first chance to get at us," as one of our own officers 
said, expressing the view of many. 

He foresaw that German God, whom the Kaiser 
keeps in attendance, hitting out in one of his rages 
to make an example of the first Americans in the 
line, as a warning to inexperienced provincials that 
they had better keep out of the European war game. 
By sufficient concentration of artillery and infantry, 
of course, either the French or Germans could take 
a given sector of trenches and put an enemy division 



no AMERICA IN FRANCE 

out of action any time they chose. This is one of 
the factors which has kept trench warfare from be- 
ing wholly monotonous. 

But there were two reasons against any such 
course on this occasion. The first reason implied 
that the German is not so dense about our character 
as he is thought to be. As a people we had not 
yet quite got down to the business of this war; we 
needed awakening to the real nature of our task. 
Would the enemy be foolish enough to inflame the 
whole American public with the hot desire to re- 
venge the sacrifice of the one trained division we 
had in France? A second reason presupposes that 
the German is a very capable soldier. He some- 
times makes local attacks for the purpose of rousing 
the offensive spirit of his troops and weakening that 
of the enemy's; but, ordinarily, he is not going out 
of his way for a spectacular stroke unless it is part 
of the development of a general plan. He judges 
the obstacle of each division in front of him bv its 
fighting ability in relation to his immediate object. 

Yet the French command and ours were bound to 
be on their guard. The same French division which 
had been our instructors in our later stages of train- 
ing accompanied us to the front to continue coaching 
us. Our allies, who had the new people from over- 
seas under observation, by the standards of their 
old-world customs thought that we might be ex- 
pected to do the unexpected thing at the unexpected 
moment if left to our own discretion, once we were 
in the trenches. 

Consider the Canadians! Consider what they 
had done to quiet sectors on the British front ! Not 



SOME FIRSTS FOR THE FIRST m 

finding much war in progress in a quiet sector they 
started to make it an active sector and succeeded. 
Incidentally, they established a precedent which 
taught the Germans to keep in mind that the Cana- 
dians, the Australians and other wild white men who 
had come from overseas were of a restless nature 
and required careful watching. The Americans, if 
left to themselves, might, in their curiosity and eager- 
ness, set out at once to see if they could not lick the 
Germans in the opposite trench; and their artillery, 
thirsting to fire at something besides a range target, 
would back their charge with barrages which would 
develop an amount of action that would not only 
disturb the quiet of Lorraine valleys, but would also 
interfere with Staff plans. 

We were nursed into the trenches with all the care 
of father teaching son to swim. The French are 
a thorough people. They believe in no short cuts 
to learning, but in gradual processes. We were not 
to start algebra until we thoroughly knew arith- 
metic, or geometry until we thoroughly knew alge- 
Dra. General Pershing is also thorough. There 
are no elective courses at West Point. 

Our battalions, three at a time, were to be placed 
between French battalions in the line in what was 
to be distinctly considered as another step in our 
course of training. Every American battery was 
to be paired off with a French battery. The French 
regulated the amount of our artillery fire and their 
observers named the targets. Our battalion com- 
manders could not act without French advice. No 
patrols could be sent out without French direction. 
We were entirely under French command. 



112 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

The artillery moved up on the night of October 
22nd. Battery C, of the Sixth Field Artillery, 
wanted the honor of firing the first shot of the war. 
Without waiting on going into position at the time 
set, the men dragged a gun forward in the early 
morning of October 23rd and sent a shell at the 
enemy. There was no particular target. The aim 
was in the general direction of Berlin. This filled 
the historical requirement which later sent the gun 
to West Point as a relic. Other artillerists said 
that they did not see anything professional in being 
first or in firing without a target, and their guns 
looked exactly like the one sent to West Point. 

The night of October 23rd, when our infantry 
left their billets for the trenches, was chill and rainy. 
The scene might have been Flanders and the troops 
British, in 19 15, to one who came out of a doorway 
and saw the passing helmets of the British type. 
But it was not Flanders and the troops were Ameri- 
can, in 19 1 7. The war had become very intimate 
through this fact. 

" ' Mum's the word,' said old sleuth in his gum 
shoes," as one soldier remarked. 

Our French mentors were more self-conscious than 
when they had " gone over the top " in a great at- 
tack. They felt their sponsorship. American of- 
ficers thought of an emergency occurring when they 
might not act on their own initiative and might be 
unable to interpret French instructions. Young lieu- 
tenants, at least, would have much preferred to have 
gone in without a chaperon and taken their chances; 
the men, too. 

The period of relief is a favorite time for attack; 



SOME FIRSTS FOR THE FIRST 113 

knowledge of the hour at least gives you a target 
for machine gun and artillery fire. Suppose that 
the Germans knew that this was the night when we 
were going in I Anything might happen. The rum- 
ble of the little ammunition wagons and the rolling 
kitchens seemed to make a roar that surely must 
be audible in the German trenches; the flaming 
showers of sparks from one of the rolling kitchens 
surely could be seen. At any minute the German 
artillery might turn on its blasts. 

Down the street you heard a sturdy rhythmic 
tread; and then a moving shadow, taking form in 
the darkness, developed into a column of soldiers 
with their faces much alike in the gloom. For all 
they knew they might be going into violent action. 
They had been drilled and drilled and schooled and 
lectured, warned by their veteran instructors what 
a tremendous, formidable devil, with all his prepara- 
tion and experience, the German was in the compli- 
cated technique of trench warfare, with its sudden 
surprises of raid and artillery concentration. 

There was nothing downhearted about their 
mood, as you saw by their faces. They were wor- 
ried, as were their officers, lest they should make 
some mistake and not remember all their training 
in case of a crisis. It did not matter so much to 
them that they might be killed as that they might 
be killed in a manner that was contrary to instruc- 
tions. If they had been told to charge machine 
guns then and there, I think that they would have 
let out the cry of hounds off the leash. 

They turned off from the roads and were lost In 
the curtain of night as they followed the paths to 



114 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the trenches, whither no detached officer was allowed 
to follow them. They took the place of the French 
and found the operation was precisely like the re- 
hearsals that they had been through. The novices 
had at least shown that they could " take over " 
without a torchlight procession and a brass band. 
Though the Germans may have known that a relief 
was in progress, they did not know that Americans 
had made it. Morning came and those on outpost 
duty looked out across the fields of wet, dead grass 
without seeing any trenches, let alone Germans. 
Others, coming out of their seeping dugouts, saw 
the fields of dead grass behind the lines and then 
had their morning meal from the rolling kitchen. 
A few shells burst; our artillery sent the customary 
rejoinders. 

Was this all there was to it? Yes, unless you 
were lucky enough to be included in a patrol into 
No Man's Land which returned without having had 
a fight. The French command was gleeful over 
hnving introduced us into war society without one 
untoward incident. American officers could point 
out where a shell nearly got a rolling kitchen as a 
proof that we were actually in the line; young lieu- 
tenants and the men themselves considered that the 
show was not up to the advertisements. 

On the second day we took our first prisoner, 
a young fellow who was in the ranks of the 
Landsturm regiment opposite us, instead of among 
first-line troops, because he was physically defective. 
He had lost his way and found himself suddenly 
at close quarters, which led to a bayonet wound in 
the abdomen. No prisoner in this war ever received 



SOME FIRSTS FOR THE FIRST 115 

more attention, though he was quite unconscious of 
it as he lay dying in our hospital under the solicitous 
care of all the doctors and attendants, who were 
balked of their ambition to save the life of the first 
wounded German who had come under their care. 

The first American to be wounded was an officer 
of the Signal Corps hit by a fragment of shell; and 
the first soldier gained his right to wear a chevron 
in the same way. All our hospitals wanted the 
privilege of receiving these two after they had 
passed through the division hospital. All the news- 
paper correspondents wanted intimate details about 
the novel fact of two wounded Americans in Eu- 
rope, for reasons that made these two men more 
interesting than a long casualty list six months later. 

Our doctors and nurses, who had arrived in num- 
bers in the early days of the expedition, had been 
waiting for this opportunity. Distinguished civil 
surgeons who were Majors in the Reserve Corps 
found that there was no need yet of a first operation. 
The only way that the claim of all hospital wards 
to hospitality could have been satisfied would have 
been an operation cutting the two wounded men into 
parts for distribution. Red Cross and chaplains, 
Y. M. C. A. and Salvation Army also wished to be 
considered as subject to a moment's call. Why not? 
We were beginning the war. Shall I ever forget the 
first wounded man I saw In Belgium in August, 
1914? 

We were to have another first; one of those inci- 
dents which we had been warned against. The Ger- 
mans who wanted information, which meant pris- 
oners, were not considerate enough to send out cir- 



ii6 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

culars announcing the programme of their first raid 
on us. A box barrage penning some of our men 
in their dugouts with its hail of projectiles; a rush 
of phantoms in German gray that was the color of 
the misty night, and prisoners and dead; and the 
Germans were gone, leaving blood spots from their 
wounded whom they had carried away in the dark- 
ness — a trick which the Canadians had taught the 
Germans and in which we were to excel ! 

Men half a mile away from the scene did not 
know what had happened. When the news was 
passed along there was only one thought: to give 
the Germans a raid in return. Everybody imagined 
himself slipping into a German dugout and snatch- 
ing a German prisoner and driving him back across 
No Man's Land. ^Yhen they learned that it did 
not suit French Staft plans that they should have a 
chance at a " comeback," what our soldiers of the 

First said was very much like " Oh, h ." Even 

those who were most regular at church services 
thought it in the presence of chaplains and Y. M. 
C. A. workers. Here you have drilled for four 
months, and then you stand around these muddy 
trenches and the German slaps you in the face and 
you are not allowed to hit back! Were we only 
going to play backstop? Weren't we ever going 
to have a chance to bat? 

Our first dead were buried at Bathlemont on 
the afternoon of November 4th. A detachment of 
French sailors along with units of French artillery, 
engineers, infantry and infantry of our own troops 
were formed in a square facing the graves. Gen- 
eral Bordeaux addressed them. The sense of his 



SOME FIRSTS FOR THE FIRST 117 

touching speech was that these men had come a long 
distance and died in hand-to-hand fighting for a cause 
which could bring them no material gain. 

" Thus the death of this humble corporal and of 
these two private soldiers appears to us with ex- 
traordinary grandeur. We will, therefore, ask that 
the mortal remains of these young men be left here; 
be left to us forever. We will inscribe on their 
tombs : ' Here lie the first soldiers of the United 
States to fall on the soil of France for justice 
and liberty.' The passerby will stop and uncover 
- his head. The travelers of France, of the Allied 
countries, of America, the men of heart, who will 
come to visit our battlefields of Lorraine, will go 
out of their way to come here to bring to these 
graves the tribute of their respect and gratefulness. 
Corporal Gresham, Private Enright, Private Hay, 
in the name of France I thank you." 

A gray day, khaki and French blue, the fresh 
earth of the graves, and these words that were 
French and soldierly from a French soldier, while 
a French battery fired minute guns over the village 
of Bathlemont at the German trenches ! i\.fter the 
address a company of the Sixteenth Infantry fired 
three volleys over the graves and a trumpeter 
sounded taps. All the troops marched by at the 
salute; the General and his staff advanced to the 
graves and saluted. 

It was a very touching ceremony. Our blood had 
been shed. Ten million able-bodied Americans were 
now committed as they had not been before to their 
task. If in the future relations between France and 
America should ever be endangered, if national 



ii8 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

selfishness should ever get the better of reason, let 
someone remember to mention the graves at Bath- 
lemont. Other Americans were to die as bravely — 
how many no one could foresee — and the plan was 
to send their bodies home. But these, the first to 
fall, will remain. 

The casualties that followed were about the usual 
number for the front that we held for the time we 
held it; but on the whole the First had more experi- 
ence of trench life itself than of its dangers in the 
ensuing gloomy, wet days and long, wet nights. 
Rain set rivulets to running in the trenches and 
turned rivulets into torrents, and moist, clinging 
snow was blown into the faces of the outposts. 

In the early period of the war every writer who 
had the privilege of visiting trenches, a privilege 
which became more and more common, attempted 
to make readers see a trench and realize its at- 
mosphere. But by the summer of 191 6 the great 
trench description contest was over, even in the 
magazines. Future efforts were left to amateurs 
who, upon seeing a trench and after having read 
dozens of descriptions, exclaimed: "No one has 
ever described this!" and set out to write a de- 
scription of their own which no one would publish. 

Trench descriptions were now revived for the 
American public because Americans were in the line. 
An American cook presided at the first rolling 
kitchen you saw as you entered the trenches. It 
was an American officer who came stoopinc: to re- 
ceive you bv candlelight in his P. C. dug Into the 
hillside. The same slippery old duck boards were 
there as you made your way along the line, but the 



SOME FIRSTS FOR THE FIRST 119 

men who pressed their backs against the trench wall 
to let you pass were Americans. American, too, was 
that dripping sentry peering out into the rain, and 
the figures huddled in the little cavity they had made, 
with a shelter tent for a roof of a machine-gun posi- 
tion, and that " bunch of huskies " who turned their 
faces up when you put your head into a dugout. 
They all saluted; they were used to saluting now 
and " sir " had become second nature. It was they 
who made any trench-stale American take a new in- 
terest in trenches and trench life. 

Exposure had not increased the sick report, thanks 
to the gradual hardening process of the physical 
regime in anticipation of just such an experience as 
they were having. They were lean and keen and 
carrying out their routine satisfactorily according 
to professional standards, these men who had been 
callow and untrained when they landed in France. 

Back at the artillery positions, which you reached 
after trying to keep your footing on the slippery 
hillside and wading in icy water, the men around the 
gun pit under the camouflage sheet of chicken wire 
flecked with patches of green cloth, which hid it 
from observation by aeroplanes, were also from the 
United States of America. Their eyes were shining 
with the zest of city men on a hunting trip. Their 
faces were wet from the rain and the earth around 
them was wet, but their smiles were dry with Ameri- 
can humor. 

All that was old to the French gunners in the 
battery across the road was new to them. Theirs 
was the spirit of a youngster out squirrel-shooting 
with his first rifle. Left to their own initiative, they 



I20 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

would have kept a stream of shells in the air with 
all the prodigality of the small boy who expends his 
firecrackers before breakfast on the Fourth of July, 
in order to show " old Henry Boche," as they called 
him, that they were on the job. 

When the third and last group of battalions of 
infantry had had their turn in the trenches and the 
artillery came out of the sector at the same time, all 
hands were asking what was the purpose of the 
practice attacks on the drill ground if they were to 
sit opposite the Germans inactive. No one knew 
the answer better than the Germans, who gave vet- 
eran troops from the Eastern front, where they 
had become slack, three months' intensive training 
before they could be made wise enough not to be 
caught napping on the Western front. The graduate 
of a technical school has not been educated in vain 
because the first work given him by a railroad is 
clerical detail or handling a gang of laborers. 

" I suppose we'll get some more training now 
before we go in the line again," said one of the men. 
He was right. The First settled down for another 
course of instruction. 



XI 

THREE MORE DIVISIONS 

A provincial French town gradually transformed into an American 
city — The New England Division arrives — "No Tobac " signs 
greet soldiers from tobacco-growing Connecticut — Fine troops, 
the New Englanders — Cape Cod lives neighbor to Brattleboro 
and Hartford to Penobscot — The Rainbow Division reaches 
Lorraine — Dishonest cold — Plenty of American food — Baths for 
the greatest bathers in Europe, our boys — The movies and 
chewing gum — The incredibly slow mails. 

The town, which was the geographical center of 
the American Zone of Advance, may seem deserted 
and unimportant after the war, but perhaps more 
comfortable and normal with its official world again 
restricted to the mayor and the local customs official. 
These two may have the pioneer Franco-American 
Officers' Club all to themselves, including the baths. 
According to the chroniclers, it was a solemn occa- 
sion when these baths were dedicated. Many of the 
Americans present were still unacclimatized enough 
to consider that any expression of their intense emo- 
tion would be self-incriminating. 

An officer of the Medical Corps who established 
a laboratory there was the first American settler in 
the town. Soon afterwards the war correspondents 
took up their quarters in the local hotel, whose pro- 
prietress was warranted in taking them for the ad- 
vance guard of our army, which laid a typewritten 



122 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

barrage on the cable office every night after their 
return from the drill grounds of the First Division. 
As press censor, I shared with them for six months 
the pride which is associated with old inhabitants, 
while we watched a conservative community yield 
gradually to the processes of Americanization. We 
saw division and corps headquarters establish them- 
selves and outrank us; the dining-room of the hotel 
became as hard pressed as a railroad restaurant 
when an excursion train without a diner stops twenty 
minutes for dinner; the growing prosperity of the 
local merchants who had hitherto done only a desul- 
tory business, as they had been too far removed 
from the front for wartime profits; and the trans- 
formation of a vacant shop into a branch of a 
famous New York, bank, with regulation American 
cashiers' windows. 

When, one morning, I found the streets swarming 
with men from Boston I knew that the Twenty-sixth 
Division (loist, 102nd, 103rd and 104th regiments), 
which was formed from the National Guard of New 
England, with Major General Clarence R. Edwards 
in command, had begun to arrive. The weather 
was normal for that season of the year. It was 
raining. Boston looked miserable, not so much on 
account of the weather as on account of the " No 
Tobac! " signs in the tobacconists' windows and the 
want of any money on the part of many of the men 
with which to buy tobacco if there had been any 
in town. The signs did not deter them from going 
inside the shops and peering wistfully into all the 
little compartments on the counter where cigars and 
cigarettes are kept and making the gesticulatory 



THREE MORE DIVISIONS 123 

argument of a man expiring for want of a smoke. 
The tobacconists tried " No Tobacco! " in place of 
"No Tobac! " in the windows without effect: and 
then " No Tobacco ! No Cigars or Cigarettes ! ", 
v/hich was more convincing. 

The penniless, with pay two months in arrears and 
with mouths watering, stared at cans of preserves 
in shop windows and cracked a joke about saving 
their wealth to subscribe to the Liberty Loan, as 
the government needed it to pay its soldiers. Of 
course, there had been a slip between Washington 
and a training camp at home and another between 
a training camp and France, and eventually the pay- 
master would connect up their descriptive lists with 
the Treasury Department and their pockets; but, 
meanwhile, what was the use of being a citizen of 
the richest country in the world or, particularly, of 
Connecticut, a tobacco-growing State? 

In those days we were not sending divisions across 
the Atlantic with the facility of dispatching suburban 
trains from the city In rush hours. A division ar- 
rived by detachments and gradually filled up Its 
sector of the training area. The chief of staff of 
the Twenty-sixth was not grieved that twenty-seven 
thousand New Englanders did not descend upon him 
at the same time. He did not need to look at the 
calendar to learn that winter was coming on. The 
calls for stoves and firewood were a sufiiclent re- 
minder; and the mud tracked into his room by of- 
ficers who came to tell him their woes was only 
another indication of the truth of the statement that 
there Is never a drought in Lorraine. 

He smiled and told them that later on the rain 



124 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

might change to snow; and when it did everybody 
agreed that it was just as wet as the rain and no 
colder. As for the winds that blew when there was 
no snow or rain, if Boston would only imagine that 
they were from the East it would be less homesick. 
How should he know whether things that were miss- 
ing were in Hoboken or on the sea or why one 
detachment got the officers' baggage of another de- 
tachment! But he was straightening things out as 
fast as he could. Wood was being cut; stoves were 
arriving — and remember that we were in a state of 
war. Why will some men forget that fact when they 
go to war? 

No, the New Englanders, in their moist overcoats 
WMth water dripping from the rims of their rumpled 
campaign hats, did not look like dress parade; only 
ducks would in the Lorraine weather. Certain critics 
let it be known that nobody expected much from the 
National Guard. You could not change its char- 
acter as long as the officers were friends and neigh- 
bors of the men and elected by their votes. Of- 
ficially the Twenty-sixth was not National Guard. 
Under the new scheme of things, as directed by the 
experts in scientific warfare, it was a part of the 
United States army, in which a division was a di- 
vision, with no distinction between divisions, and the 
transfer of personnel between divisions became an 
established principle for developing homofjenelty. 
But the flavor of locality and the pride of locality 
endured. These regiments from New England were 
regiments with Civil War and even Revolutionary 
traditions. 

Something that the Lorraine weather could not 



THREE MORE DIVISIONS 125 

change was the physique under the overcoats. The 
■Tien were more than the average height, broad- 
chested and vigorous. Many had been on the Bor- 
der. The recruits were of equally good material, 
including the volunteers and about a hundred men 
from the National Draft who had been jumped into 
uniforms and hurried on board ship to fill up the 
ranks of a regiment. Saluting had not yet become 
a universal habit with them according to accepted 
requirements in France. General Edwards looked 
after this with a system of his own. 

"You don't salute your superior officer?" he 
would say as he stopped a man. " Well, your Gen- 
eral salutes you in order to show you how to salute," 
and the man addressed never failed to salute there- 
after. 

Detachments of the Twenty-sixth kept appearing 
until all were in. Now General Pershing had two 
complete divisions. Every New England State was 
represented in some village in France, as well as 
all of New England's occupations, from lobster 
fishers from Maine to factory hands from Rhode 
Island. Cape Cod lived neighbor to Brattleboro 
and Hartford to Penobscot. 

"Are there many Harvard men among you?" a 
Harvard man asked a soldier of the Twenty-sixth. 

" Some of us are workingmen," the soldier said 
pithily. 

As soon as any lot of newcomers were settled in 
their billets they did what American soldiers and 
the Canadians always do. Their restless, nervous 
energy impels them to movement. They wanted to 
know where they were and what was doing generally. 



ii6 AMERICA IX FRANXE 

^Yhat was the chateau on the hill like ? Who lived 
there? Let's go up and see the old place. Madame' 
la Comtesse looked out of her window to see rigur^s 
in khaki walking about in her garden. As they were- 
Allies and Americans at that, she did not disturb 
them. Until discipline restricted their tourist pro- 
clivities, you met New Englanders on the road miles 
trom their billets, bound to see the next village. 
After they had seen that, curiosity called them to 
the next with a view to ascertaining if all the villages 
in France were alike. Then discipline had to inter- 
fere with such pilgrimages. 

The soldiers of French-Canadian origin in the 
division had everything their own way. After cen- 
turies of transplantation they were on the native 
soil of their ancestors speaking a French that made' 
them the more interesting to the natives in that they 
had to explain words of a pjtois as old as Eliza- 
bethan English, which Joan of Arc would have un- 
derstood better than the modem Lorniiner. whose- 
language has changed with time more than that of 
Quebec. They were at home at once as they took 
the village girls for strolls, leaving English-speaking 
rivals mere dumb spectators of a triumphant prog- 
ress. Their readiness to act as interpreters in af- 
fairs of business for their comrades excluded artalrs 
of romance. There was talk on the part of the 
neglected majority of having the French-Canadians 
formed into a separate unit and sent to the Italian 
army. 

In view of their service on the Border, where thev 
had been under his command. General Pershing had 
considered that the National Guard divisions should 



THREE MORE DIVISIONS 127 

alternate with regular divisions ^^ expanded by a 
large percentage of recruits) in the pioneer service 
in France. If it were htting that the honor of being 
the tirst regular division should go to the First, then, 
in the name of the Pilgrims who landed at Cape Cod 
.md of the founders of Jamestown, the tirst Na- 
cional Guard division which was to participate in the 
Od^-^sey of America in Europe ought to come from 
c^ither New England or Virginia. 

By the same token, it seemed proper that the next 
division of former Guardsmen sent to France should 
represent the whole country. After the a^nhnement 
of a transport and a train ride in box cars, as new 
to them as it was to all their predecessors and suc- 
cessors in the flow of troops across the Atlantic, the 
first lot of the Forty-second (ib5th. i66th, 167th 
and i6Sth regiments), commanded by Maior Gen- 
eral William A. Mann and, later, by Major General 
Charles T. Menoher, had their introduction to vil- 
lage billets in the fullness of their tirst contact with 
discomforts to which the New Englanders were be- 
coming accustomed. Even*- American soldier is a 
noWce, a rookie, when he goes to a training camp: 
again, when he goes on board ship; ag-ain, when he 
arrives in France: again, when he goes into the 
trenches for the first time. After this he " knows." 

No rainbows welcomed the Rainbow Division to 
^ts area. Sun is required to make a rainbow. After 
.>11 that they had heard about " sunny France." what 
our men saw of France that winter made them 
ready to believe that there are no nuts in Brazil 
and no spices in Java. Reports of halcyon summer 
days in other parts of France only irritated them to 



128 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

fresh satire. It might be fair \yeather on the 
Riviera, but that did not help you any in the mist- 
ridden and rain-splashed valleys behind the Vosges. 
On account of their lale arrival the Rainbows had 
particular reasons for losing their faith in all that 
the guide books said about foreign parts. Their 
chief of staff had troubles of his own no less press- 
ing than other chiefs of staff. 

The Rainbow Division was celebrated. The idea 
of an ail-American division touched the chord of 
popular sentiment; its name had the appeal of 
romance, in keeping with the crusade of armed men 
to a distant land. This was bound to make it think 
well of itself, which is a good thing for any division 
if it does not lead to the mistake of accepting reputa- 
tion as a guarantee of success. Fame did not bring 
steam heat to the barn lofts where the men slept. 
Rather, it was something to live up to. The Rain- 
bows must make good because they were the Rain- 
bows; and they did make good. 

Meanwhile, the Second Division (9th and 23rd 
regiments and 5th and 6th Marines), under Major 
General Omar Bundy, was forming, in addition to 
the regiment of Marines already in France now be- 
ing mobilized from its detached service. These four 
divisions, the First, the Second, the Twenty-sixth 
and the Forty-second, were to be associated in our 
minds as a group. All were in the trenches, all had 
their own artillery ready to act with them long be- 
fore other divisions, owing to circumstances rather 
than to any intention of preference. 

They formed the nucleus of our first Corps. Our 
thoughts were centered on them inithe early days of 



THREE MORE DIVISIONS 129 

the expedition. Their efficiency was the subject of 
discussion through the various stages of their prog- 
ress, while the immense inflow of divisions in the 
early summer of 19 18 made it difficult to remember 
the names of the new arrivals who needed shorter 
periods of training in France, thanks to the longer 
and more up-to-date training which they had received 
at home before they went into the line in the critical 
hours of the German offensive of that period. Still 
another reason for their isolation is the fact that 
the four passed through the first winter. Nothing 
that other divisions may do will ever rob them of 
this distinction, which will make the first service 
stripe on their sleeves precious to every officer and 
man. 

It was only natural that the heroine of France 
should come from Lorraine, as a soldier said. Joan 
was bred in fortitude by the climate. The most 
loyal Lorrainer will concede that the climate is moist 
and chill in winter. And he is used to it. He accepts 
it as the Filipino accepts typhoons and the Arab 
accepts the desert. It must make vigorous men, as 
you may work out of doors the year round. There 
are no such extremes as we have between winter 
and summer. 

The cold of Lorraine was not honest cold, accord- 
ing to our ideas. We think of honest cold as that 
of the Northern States and Canada, with frost on 
the windows and snow on the ground. The tem- 
perature at which we keep our rooms in winter makes 
us really a warm-weather people. Steam heat in 
office, factory, house and trains has become second 
nature to the inhabitants of our Northern States. 



I30 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

Even our American ancestors who broke the ice 
in the pitcher for their morning ablutions, as a 
writer would have said in the language of the day, 
would have found northern Europe trying. They 
were used to clear, dry, biting cold; the kind that 
freezes your ears but not your marrow. That of 
Lorraine is more like ours than is Flanders cold, 
with less humidity but enough, when reenforced by 
the lower mountain temperatures, to prevent a Lor- 
raine house with a few sparks in the fireplace from 
being any more comfortable than a Flanders house. 
It made the American body into a sponge which it 
saturated with icy mist and rain. 

Northerners who have gone south in winter and 
shivered more in the tropical houses than at home, 
will understand how Alabama, which was supposed 
to be at a disadvantage, stood this kind of cold as 
well as Ohio, which looks out from rooms heated 
to seventy degrees Fahrenheit upon the icy stretches 
of Lake Erie. Billets which were comfortable to 
the French soldier could not be comfortable to the 
American. The idea that war was without hard- 
ships in France was a paradox to men who would 
have preferred sleeping in tents in Alaska, where 
I have felt the cold less than in France, to sleeping in 
fireless rooms in France. 

Their post-war recollections will picture that win- 
ter as something heroic for the pioneer divisions. 
Even Valley Forge did not become heroic until Mon- 
mouth and Yorktown immortalized it. The soldier 
who had a mansion at home and the one who lived 
in a tenement missed the same thing — heat. As one 
soldier said as he climbed into a hayloft for the 



THREE MORE DIVISIONS 131 

night, " I'd like to be a cloth and be wrapped around 
a steam-pipe until spring," 

We must have more heat than the French, and 
we had it. Our soldiers cut the wood from the 
forests to make it. It was green, it sizzled, but 
with a proper draft it would burn. An influx of 
stoves such as that region of France had never 
known met the situation successfully. The Adrian 
barracks were kept cozy; officers in chateaux, where 
great rooms were heated by a small grate, suffered 
more than the men who were in barracks. All 
were in the same boat when we took over billets 
from the French at the front; and all four divisions 
were in the line before the winter was over. Then 
an Adrian barracks, by contrast, seemed a paradise. 

The overseas cap came to take the place of the 
campaign hat. When mothers at home saw pic- 
tures of their sons wearing it, they said that their 
sons did not look like American soldiers, which is 
another illustration that the unfamiliar thing seems 
unnatural. Our dignified, long officers' overcoats, 
soaking up moisture until they were like a clammy 
shroud, yielded to the short trench coat with its 
fleece or wool lining and water-proof exterior but- 
toned up close under the chin. 

We learned, too, that the Lorrainers depend upon 
internal as well as external stoking to keep warm. 
They eat heartily and plenty of videments and do 
not come to their breakfast with a steam-heat taste 
in their mouth which calls for grapefruit. Go from 
a chateau in France in midwinter to a steam-heated 
hotel in New York, and if you do not change your 
diet you will sufter from vertigo. Return to the 



13 2 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

chateau and your shivering flesh requires that voii 
put sweets and tats in your human furnace. 

There Avas never a time when the men kicked 
plenty of food — American food. The simmer of 
bacon made sweeter music than the Metropolitan 
Orchestra. There were canned corned beet hash, 
great rations of fresh beef as well as canned " willy," 
and big satisfying loaves of white bread as well as 
hard bread, and Boston did not go without its baked 
beans. What a morning for you when you received 
your first invitation from a mess for a real American 
breakfast oi corn cakes and syrup and fried ham 
and coffee that was not cafe ait la'tt! French cuisine 
was all very well, but you did not know how good 
home things were until you went to war. Such a 
gorge in that Lorraine climate, with the sauce of 
appetite, left no envy of people dilly-dallying over 
a banquet at a Fifth Avenue hotel. French ofHcers 
invited in for the corn cakes said polite things about 
them and ate the amount politeness required, won- 
dering more at our dietary regime than our cus- 
tom of drinking cold water at luncheon and dinner. 

In the early days the privilege that you envied 
your friends at home more than their food was their 
bathtubs. Other peoples have thought that we must 
be an unclean people because we bathe so much. 
Our national Insistence upon beginning the day by 
lying full length in a tub of water is a habit which 
some of our men thought had become a necessity 
until they were billeted in a French village. They 
felt sticky at first, but after a while it seemed quite 
natural and they had no more apprehension about 
an early demise from uncleanliness than had had 



THREE MORE DIVISIONS 133 

their great-grandfathers, who considered an " all- 
over " once a week enough, with lapses even from 
this schedule when there was a prolonged " cold 
spell." 

One officer said, after an effort with cold water 
in a cold room, that he was not going to bathe again 
until he had blue mold on his back. He was out 
for the non-bathing record in Lorraine. But that 
was pose. He did not miss a chance for a pilgrim- 
age to the officers' club for a " hot soak," which was 
a concentration of joy more than equaling the after- 
glows from tifty regular morning baths, or a shower 
after you have beaten your deadliest rival at golf. 
If you had a meal of hot cakes with syrup after- 
wards, — well, there were compensations in fighting 
the battle of civilization. When a certain major 
general made a trip of fifty miles to get a real bath, 
it was too important an event for his staff to keep 
it a secret. They knew that he would feel like a 
lieutenant general when he returned. 

Bathhouses were built for the soldiers and they 
took their turns at a weekly " scraping " ; and, as a 
matter of fact, every town of any size had a public 
bathhouse. For our national dipsomania in bathing 
should not be construed as casting reflection upon our 
allies. When this army returns from France, more 
Americans than ever before will not feel that they 
ought to be expelled from their clubs and lodges 
because they have missed their morning bath. 
Everything is habit, as travel teaches in the course 
of making you broad-minded. 

The men were healthy in spite of the climate and 
of those pessimists who drew long faces in the 



134 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

autumn as they thought of the winter and exclaimed: 
" We're going to have a lot of sickness! " Ravages 
of pneumonia and epidemics of spinal meningitis and 
other diseases which were prophesied did not ma- 
terialize. There was less sickness than in some of 
our training camps at home, which does not imply 
that there were not cases of pneumonia and that 
there was not inHuenza which ran its contagious 
course, along with sore throats calling for the use 
of the iodine brush by the medicos. Coughs and 
sneezing ran up and down the line when a company 
fell in: but the small number of deaths could not 
be gainsaid. Mothers had worried unnecessarily 
about their sons; and they would have worried more 
If the pessimists had been allowed to shout their 
apprehensions from the housetops. 

Not even soldier philosophy and the medico's skill 
could lengthen the short days or remove the gloom 
of overcast skies to men far from home, who were 
children of the sunlight which never deserts our 
country long even In winter, when its glare Is on the 
snow and ice in the north at the same time that it 
kisses the white caps of the Sierras, burns on the 
desert and lays Its broad sweep over the Southland. 
Yet we never think of speaking of " sunny America," 
except In referring to some part particularly adver- 
tised in tourist folders which also call us to " sunny 
Hawaii " and " the sunny Caribbean." 

But there was compensation. The Y. M. C. A. 
came along with Its moving-picture shows including 
the latest reels from home, though one reel showing 
people bathing at Palm Beach brought a wry laugh. 
Its huts sent out beams of welcoming light on dark 



THREE MORE DIVISIONS 135 

nights. Its supplies were arriving regularly, includ- 
ing gum. Children followed the soldiers begging 
for " goom." We shall set the jaws of Europe to 
working on great waste of masticatory energy and 
possibly to eating peanuts in rooting at future 
French ball games. The bat, the mask and the glove 
had to be laid aside; but, in order to keep fit, we 
undertook football and other games that could be 
played in the cold and the mud. 

The worst trial of all was the slowness of the 
mails. How little the average person knows the 
meaning of a letter from home to a soldier! His 
letters from home are all the home he has. They 
summon home to his imagination in periods of 
reality which are separated by periods of conjecture, 
whose anxiety was dependent upon the length of 
time between letters. The longer the time a letter 
takes to arrive, the less assuring is the visualization 
haunted by the words, " I wonder what has hap- 
pened since it was written!" — happened to those 
you love, to those whom you worry about though 
you do not worry about yourself even when you go 
over the top. I can imagine no more heinous prop- 
aganda that could be devised to ruin an army's 
morale than to keep all their letters from the men 
for a month before they went into battle, or to have 
them receive belated letters telling of family troubles. 

A man would say, triumphantly: " I got a letter 
from home which has been only three weeks in com- 
ing! " and all that day and the next he would be 
happy with that letter in the pocket of his blouse. 
Of course, there were letters mailed before it and 
connecting up with it which had not yet come. 



136 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

Steamers across the Atlantic were slow. Mail came 
by transports and passenger steamers of varying 
speeds and subject to varying delays. The system 
of unit addresses was difficult of application and 
organizations were on the move in France as well 
as en route from home; but all these mitigating cir- 
cumstances did not change results or wholly explain 
them, especially when a division had a settled train- 
ing area. 

It was unjust and stupid to place the blame upon 
that poor postal clerk fresh from the States, who 
had opened up a post office in a training-camp town. 
He had to deal with French postal authorities when 
he spoke no French and to depend upon French 
trains. His brain ached from contact with unfa- 
miliar difficulties. If he ever got back to his regular 
postal job in the U. S. A., you could bet your life 
they wouldn't get him in France again or on any 
other job which had him started straight for a 
lunatic asylum ! People at home did not write 
P. O. 903, or Co. A, 3rd Bn., 96th Div., as an ad- 
dress; and postal clerks did not receive letters in 
California which belonged in New England, and 
have people complain because letters addressed to 
Boston from New York were late because they had 
gone by way of Reno, Nevada, How was he to 
know that that Signal Corps outfit had left Balin- 
court, Lorraine, for Ablainville, Brittany? 

According to his notion, a set of cards bearing 
the mail addresses of the units of the American Ex- 
peditionary Force were evidently piled on a map 
of France and then stirred about and then piled 
again and stirred again, and then shot into bags and 
sent to the four corners of the compass. He was 



THREE MORE DIVISIONS 137 

"up against it," as he said; as much up against it 
as if he had been put in charge of the mail delivery 
of ancient Babylon without any knowledge of hiero- 
glyphics. All he could do was to wait until he was 
transferred to another place or recalled as the result 
of complaints; and, meanwhile, he could strive for 
transport to brings the bags to the office and try to 
locate the owners of letters when he opened the 
bag. The things said about the postal service in 
general, some justifiable and some unjustifiable, were 
warm enough to make dry spots in the Lorraine 
weather. 

Meanwhile, training proceeded in the damnable 
weather. All four divisions, instructed by French 
units, were going through the curriculum of the 
First Division amended in keeping with later de- 
velopments in tactics. The short days, the mud, the 
rain and the snow limited the hours of work. Skir- 
mish lines could not lie long in sodden fields; bomb- 
ing up practice trenches filled with water had its 
limitations. But anyhow, if you got ill they sent 
you to a fine hospital, with American women nurses 
who talked United States and made you think that 
you were as important as General Pershing, while 
you were having a much better time than he was. 
There was little grumbling, not even from the 
National Guardsmen who were expected to write 
passionate letters of complaint home to their con- 
gressmen. Our men played the part of men. 
Through that winter they disproved any idea that 
our national wealth had made us soft; and in the 
spring they were to disprove any idea that this 
generation of Americans has not the courage of its 
forebears. 



XII 



PULLING UPSTREAM 

The Italian and Russian disasters — The British offensive of 1917 — 
Reasons and disappointments — Thirty per cent superiority of 
German numbers — Reasons for our three-inillion-men pro- 
gramme — Difficulties of transportation increased during the 
winter — Men who triumphed and men who worked their hearts 
out — Our national energy — The Inter-aliied Conference — Faith 
of our Commander-in-Chief in America's part — The Staff 
College of the A. E. F. — All desires expressed in the one 
word, ships. 

In the censor's office you might read the detailed 
press cable sent home about our three battalions in 
the line and our first prisoner. At Headquarters 
you might read the brief enemy communiques, 
picked up from the German wireless by our Signal 
Corps and typewritten on a sheet of note paper, 
telling of the sweep of the Austro-German forces 
into the plain of Lombardy and the taking of more 
prisoners than the total of the American forces in 
France. This concerned us no less than it con- 
cerned the British and the French, who had been 
looking us over all summer and wondering what 
they might expect from us. What? Ask the ton- 
nage expert at Headquarters! Ask the shipbuilders 
at home ! Ask the American people ! 

" The Italians will hold on the Piave ! " we were 
138 



PULLING UPSTREAM 139 

saying. This was the thing to say. But holding on 
the Piave was not winning the war. 

There was other news than that from Italy; news 
from Russia, news from the British front. The 
campaign of 19 17, begun with great expectations 
of the Anglo-French offensive and continuing in the 
British offensive and an Italian offensive, had ended 
in the collapse of Russia, in the bloody stalemate 
grapple of the British with the Germans on Passchen- 
daele Ridge, and a disaster to the Italian arms. 

From that day, just as we had entered the war, 
when we read in the news dispatches about Russian 
soldiers refusing to salute their officers and about 
battalions commanded by committees, it was clear 
that, unless a miracle happened, the Russian army 
could not recover its organization for any important 
offensive action in this war. Any army takes long 
to build; when demoralization sets in it crumbles 
rapidly. 

Yet against the logic of experience we might try 
to convince ourselves that Kerensky would become 
the Napoleon of the Russian revolution, bringing 
order out of chaos. After he was out, we might 
hope that the Bolsheviki and the Council of Work- 
men and Soldiers' delegates would learn in time 
from bitter experience that only force counted 
against the German army, and, summoning the de- 
fensive spirit in Russian manhood for Russia's 
defense, would still maintain a force sufficient to hold 
many German divisions in position on the Eastern 
front. 

The British army, formed and trained to 
Kitchener's programme of delivering in the third 



140 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

year of the war a finishing blow to the enemy — 
which it would have delivered it Russia's enormous 
man-power had been continuously exerted with any- 
thing like its military force of 19 14- 15 — was to 
fight all summer, after the Germans had checked 
the French offensive in Champagne, in trying to 
carry out part of the original Anglo-French offen- 
sive plan of 19 17. It fought because it must fight; 
it fought to hold the Germans off Russia in order 
to give Russia time to recover, if it were in her to 
do it: fought to retain the Allied initiative in the 
West; fought to keep German divisions from ham- 
pering the Italian offensive, and fought to keep Ru- 
mania In line, while it looked to the rainbow's end of 
a break. 

Between attacks, officers and men, reading the 
reports of our preparation for the mastery of the 
air and of our recruits training In camps at home, 
asked the practical soldier question, '' How many 
divisions have the Americans in France? When are 
they going into the line ? " They knew nothing of 
what statesmen were planning; nothing about all 
the shipping in the world which a unity of purpose 
might summon from the scattered service of indi- 
vidual enterprise to war service. 

Perhaps it would have been better for the British 
to have given up Russia and Rumania as lost, and 
to have held fast without striking when the French 
army could not spare the men for a united general 
offensive after Its gallant assistance in the Flanders 
attack of July 31st. But this was not in the char- 
acter of the British army. No army had ever had 
the principle that the offensive alone wins more thor- 



PULLING UPSTREAM 141 

oughly inculcated by racial and national tradition 
as well as by training than the British army. All 
its plans and preparations culminated in this year as 
the year when, from spring to winter, it should flail 
the Germans. 

It was due to attack and it attacked, applying the 
bulldog grip in the Ypres salient, that wickedest and 
bloodiest of battlefields. What followed was the 
very grinding mill of war over ground where new 
shell-bursts threshed the earth that had been 
threshed and mixed with the bones of brave men 
for over three years. There could be no tactical 
surprises for the enemy after the beginning of the 
campaign; there was no room for maneuvering in 
that small space crowded with men and material 
and guns, hub to hub; but in the phlegm of their 
resolution the British kept driving for small gains, 
and with the stubbornness of their phlegm sought 
to make protection for holding their gains in the 
porous soil where to dig a trench is to dig a well. 
All in that calm, ordered way in keeping with British 
character, rested battalions moved up to take the 
place of the survivors of exhausted battalions, over 
roads familiar for three years to British soldiers, 
and past the old ruins of villages pounded by fresh 
bombardments. They were the same British when 
I saw them in the thick of their effort of 19 17 that 
they were in 19 14, 1915 and 19 16; stoical and 
dogged, however bloody the work at hand. 

The Ypres salient was a morass of death which 
was as a magnet drawing German division after 
German division into the common shambles. As 
Arnold von Winkelried took the spears to his breast, 



142 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the British army received the German reserves, say- 
ing, "Bring vour German divisions to us I We'll 
keep them off the Eastern front and the Isonzo no 
matter what it costs ! " 

The British attack at Camhrai. which followed, 
was like so manv of the Allied actions in the war — a 
stroke by one Ally to help out another who was in 
trouble. Here, necessity forced a cooperation that 
had never been developed in a common offensive 
with England unready when Russia was ready, with 
Italv unreadv when France was readv and Russia 
alreadv breaking down when England was ready. 
While British and French divisions were hurrying 
to assist the Italians on the Piave, a direct blow on 
the British front should prevent more German 
divisions — if that were the German plan — from 
rushing to Italy to follow up the victory at 
Caporetto. 

Whether the cause was the British counter-blow 
or the fear to extend himself with a long line of 
winter communications, at all events the German 
did not press his advantage. He left the Italians, 
with the help of British and French reenforcements, 
occupied in preparing their new defenses and struck 
back at the British at Cambrai. His riposte there 
was costly for him. but epochal. For the first time 
since his attack on the Canadians in June, 191 6, 
in the Ypres salient, he had taken the initiative on 
the Western front. Such was the notice he served 
on the world as food for its winter thought. 

Not content with this, he announced, through his 
oily, whispering agents in Switzerland, that he was 
preparing for a great offensive on the Western front; 



PULLING UPSTREAM 143 

and this method of promulgation was taken in some 
quarters to mean that his next objective would be 
Italy or Salonica. What should be kept secret if 
not an offensive? Such publicity was a little too 
obvious to minds priding themselves on their per- 
spicacity in detecting German deception. It was Bis- 
marck who said that if you told the truth no one 
would believe you, which was an indication that he 
had no illusions about the world's opinion of him- 
self. 

A conversation sometimes crystallizes, in the sim- 
plicity of direct phrase, the nature of a situation. 
One day when I was in the office of a responsible 
American officer and we were talking of the outlook, 
he wrote two sets of figures on a pad. On one 
side were the Allied divisions on the Western front, 
French, British, Belgian, Portuguese and American; 
on the other was the number of German divisions 
then on the Western front and the number which 
might be spared from the Eastern fi-ont. He added 
up the columns and passed the pad across the table. 

" There is something for our people to chew on," 
he said. 

I saw that the Germans hn^^ a superiority of 
thirty per cent. 

" It's up to us," he added. 

Comb FVance and England for more man-power 
and still they could not make up the difference. The 
next Allied offensive must depend upon American 
divisions. Meanwhile, before we won the war we 
must stop the Germans from winning it. Could 
the Allies hold without large reenforcements from 
America? It would seem that they ought. Thirty 



144 AMERICA IX FRANXE 

per cent was not sufficient superiority, even in 
pitched battle days, to insure a decision. How. then, 
could it be on a solid front with no room tor flank- 
ing? But the theory of a stalemate had received 
.1 shock at Caporetto, where the Germans had 
smashed through the Italian line and thrown armies 
in rout, which had set the cautious, who had had 
great faith in trench warfare, upon another tangent 
of thought. The German had the interior line; the 
advantage, though the general plan of his offensive 
were known, of concealing the point of concentra- 
tion where he hoped for a break. 

The truth in those figures, if not the figures them- 
selves, was telegraphed to America ; but not the full 
truth of our situation. With the Allies depending 
upon America, morale' raised its hand in warning 
against depressing an Italy still tremulous on the 
Piave after her great losses, a France which faced 
the fourth winter of the war, a Rumania isolated but 
loval, and whatever elements of organization re- 
mained in Russia. 

Propaganda was now the ascendant word of the 
Allied lexicon. We Allies, perhaps, were given to 
riding one idea hard for a time and then taking up 
another as the sure means to victory, when the only 
sure means is all-round military efficiency and hard 
fighting. The Italian disaster was ascribed to the 
infiltration of German propaganda into the Itahan 
ranks which had broken Italian morale'. The same 
influences might be at work in France. We must 
not support them with discouraging reports. 

It was, indeed, up to us! The million-men. two- 
million-men, three-million-men project needed no 



PULLING UPSTREAM 145 

further justification than the two sums In addition 
on the pad. Victory had again raised the morale 
of the German army. There was no sign of any 
uprising among the German people which would 
obviate the necessity of our bringing over the great 
army which our Staff in France had prepared to 
receive. 

We were still behind our programme in troop 
transport. Hoboken had become the byword of our 
disappointments. It was the symbol for home ports 
where supplies accumulated, awaiting shipment. The 
submarine situation might be better, but its toll still 
exceeded construction. The outline of a ship was 
burned in the heart and brain of every organizer 
striving to get on with his work. There might be 
supplies enough for the men we had in France, but 
these were only the incidental routine of army exist- 
ence beside the requirements for construction. 

The Italian disaster had its effect upon every 
village in France, upon every human being, as the 
result of the new demands upon an economic organ- 
ization whose balance was delicately held in meeting 
the needs of the French army and people and our 
own increasing demands. Italy had lost guns and 
ammunition and quantities of material of all kinds 
brought from abroad, which must be replaced from 
abroad. All traffic must cease on the railroad lines 
to Italy to leave them open for the passage of 
British and French divisions; the call for rolling 
stock for their transport had priority over all other 
demands. 

Where previous lines of communication for these 
divisions had been short as a part of the system of 



146 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

supplying the two armies in their settled zones, they 
must now run across France and halfway across 
Italy. This rearrangement passed on its effects, 
altering many plans, delaying their fruition, keeping 
coal from people's grates, limiting factory outputs 
and delaying all kinds of shipments. The pressure 
for the new railroad locomotives from America and 
for more rolling stock was accordingly the greater. 
Cargoes arriving from America were still unclassi- 
fied in many instances; ships with every pound of 
tonnage space previously taken now arrived not fully 
laden, sometimes not hy twenty or thirty per cent 
of their capacity. 

Partlv finished warehouses, piers, railroad yards 
and structures oi all kinds situated at the ditterent 
points which were to be connected into a system 
were not yet ready for use. The material for build- 
ing others was scattered about the sites. Men who 
looked at their blue prints, measuring results by 
their ambition and the number of unfilled requisitions 
which were vital to progress, knew that it was against 
orders to become discouraged. Then, the labor, 
which was waiting upon material, arrived: or the 
material that labor awaited, whether tools, corru- 
gated iron, stanchions, cranes, light railway cars, 
cars, pumps, dredge parts, piles, rails or railway ties 
or cement, appeared one day as another tribute to 
the accomplishments of the French railroad system 
under its heavy strain, manned by old men, often 
poorly trained, who had taken the place of the 
younger men who had fallen in action or were in 
the trenches. To have the next vital part in your 
'^operations lying upon a pier at a base port was 



PULLING UPSTREAM 147 

far from having It delivered; and priority from a 
port to the point of dehvery In France was no 
less a trying problem than v/as priority from In- 
terior points in the United States to Atlantic ports 
where our own railroad system was getting Its first 
experience of war strain. 

Engineers In France who had been with the 
Panama Canal project from the first knew from 
experience that a stage of reaction would come. 
Reserve officers with reputations for excellence in 
some particular line did not always succeed in France. 
Trained in home conditions, their minds were too 
fixed for adaptability to different problems in a dif- 
ferent environment. Again, when they had adapta- 
bility their personal efficiency could not take the place 
of material and tools, or they broke down from 
overwork, or were harassed by superiors with minds 
Incapable of expanding to greater responsibilities 
or of appreciating difficulties and who sought scape- 
goats for their own inefficiency. The major, who 
had the ear of a colonel who In turn had the ear of 
a brigadier general, might sacrifice captains and 
lieutenants to save himself. With such a concentra- 
tion of authority as the great project required, the 
axes of private ambition, In some Instances, were 
bound to be ground at the expense of the whole. 

I remember hearing an officer say of a subordi- 
nate : " J. does not know anything about his work. 
The reputation he has made Is all bluff. WeVe 
got to get another man. Fm going to take hold 
of the matter In person." The truth was that the 
speaker did not know anything about the work him- 
self. It was his own directions that made the mis- 



148 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

take of forcing J. to a system contrary to his own 
ideas. He now gave orders to J.'s successor to carrv 
out J.'s system, which succeeded to his own credit in 
the eyes of his superior officer. This gentleman 
would go on rising until some superior found him 
out. 

Again an officer might have the department that 
he had built up moving well, when an officer who 
had the ear of a major general would take it over, 
leaving the pioneer stranded. This was clever per- 
sonal politics but hardly good patriotism, and some- 
times sacrificed a man who had too tine a sense of 
service to make his situation known. As a people, 
we have an inclination not to believe in merit if it 
is not advertised. But I am speaking of exceptions 
in order to be discriminate. Other superiors, who 
had true purpose in keeping with their ability to 
make plans, delegate authority and rise to responsi- 
bility, won the loyalty and devotion of all their sub- 
ordinates. 

Men triumphed and men worked their hearts out: 
men had their hearts broken; men who worked and 
worried for sixteen hours a day, in order to prove 
that they were on the job, lost the sense of firm 
resolution and decision which the confidence of su- 
periors and Sunday holidays and an occasional golf 
game kept alive in them at home. But to knock oft 
for a day and walk across the fields was the sign 
that you were losing your grip, until higher au- 
thority intervened and sent men who were on their 
nerves off for a rest to Nice, which became the 
resort where tired officers recuperated. 

Reorganization, with new orders confusing the 



PULLING UPSTREAM 149 

minds of executives, was necessary, but with some 
superiors it became a habit. 

" Good God ! Here are some more instructions ! " 
exclaimed a foreman of a project one day. " More 
instructions telling me how to do things instead of 
telling me what they want done! If I don't know, 
what am I here for! " 

He continued to carry out each set of new in- 
structions, which only led to more inefficiency until a 
major general divorced that superior from a field 
clerk and a typewriter. 

It was our national energy — the energy that 
sought gold in California and Alaska, that built 
railroad lines and founded cities — driving and bat- 
tling, hustling and pounding, that saved the day at 
the same time that, in hectic periods, it defeated its 
own ends. The very dissatisfaction of men with 
results was one of the most auspicious signs. Even 
selfish ambition means application of some sort. A 
layman visiting the sites of construction work could 
see how the high lights, the vague forms here, the 
concrete masses there, were developing in the nega- 
tive of the project, and his imagination could fill in 
the picture. If he had no imagination he was a 
poor American. 

There was not an hour of the day when we were 
allowed to forget our dependence upon the people 
at home. Sometimes we thought of the effort in 
America as the effort of some gigantic piston hardly 
fast to its moorings, walloping about, as it drove 
through a tiny orifice what seemed only driblets of 
supplies for us considering our vast requirements. 
Some of the newspaper dispatches from Washington 



I50 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

and New York indicated to us, in some of our moods, 
that one idea of the war prevailed in Europe and 
another in America, where there appeared to be 
activity in every line except in shipbuilding. The 
Atlantic seemed a million miles broad to us. 

It is trite to say that the Allied countries, fighting 
for freedom, suffered in their military efforts from 
the effects of freedom and also from the confidence 
that victory must be on the side of the just cause. 
Unhappily, a good many just causes and a good 
many civilizations have fallen before ruthless mili- 
tary conquerors. The Germans had some reason 
for their view that we were out of our heads in 
thinking that the war was going our way. It has 
taken defeats to bring to the Allied minds essentials 
which should have been obvious from the first. The 
Italian disaster aroused us again to the necessity of 
cooperation and summoned the Inter-allied Confer- 
ence in Paris, when the United States, which had no 
national territorial aims to satisfy, might act as a 
unifying element. 

The Supreme War Council at Versailles did not 
bring unity of command, although it established a 
permanent body for the coordination of effort. 
When Russia was still in the war, any practical effort 
at unity was defeated by that alliance of intrigue 
between Berlin and Russian court circles, which put 
all suggestions embodying plans for operations on 
the Western front at the disposal of the German 
Staff. With the war restricted to the West, the 
line from the Adriatic to the North Sea could be 
considered as one line. It was to take still another 
serious setback to our arms to establish for the 



PULLING UPSTREAM 151 

Allies real unity of command, which Germany had 
from the start of the war from her Imperial Master. 
We must wait on our publics, which are our masters. 

The thought of the American army driven home 
at the Inter-allied Conference was ships, ships and 
more ships to bring troops and supplies. There 
was no use in bringing the one unless you brought 
the other. Ships wherever they could be procured, 
from all the seas of the world ! Any ship lying 
unnecessarily idle in any port, every hour's delay in 
the turn-around of our transports, was serving the 
enemy. We would not believe that there were not 
ships available for our uses. 

The one office to which no subordinate must bring 
any word of pessimism was that of the C.-in-C. 
He had no patience with the phrase " It can't be 
done ! " or with any statistician who figured out 
tonnage assets and submarine losses to prove the 
impossibility of transporting and supplying a great 
army across the Atlantic. The submarine could and 
would be conquered. We could build enough ships 
to bridge the Atlantic for five million men if need 
be and for artillery and ammunition without limit. 
The worse the news the firmer he set his faith in 
the future — if we worked and fought. He believed 
in his army, in his country and its cause and an 
unconquerable force. When the Allies began to won- 
der if our resources would ever materialize in a 
powerful military force against the enemy, his 
vigorous, vital personal influence had its effect upon 
other generals than our own. The ships would be 
built; the divisions from our training camps would 
come. 



152 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

The army in France was making ready to do its 
part. If the nation would only build the bridge 
we knew how we should use the men and the ma- 
terial. We were making ready in more than the 
blue print plans, in more than construction work; 
making ready to command and organize the mil- 
lions. The organization of our school system which 
was to prepare officers to direct our divisions had 
been going on at the same time as the training of 
the divisions and the building of docks and yards. 
Both regular and reserve officers were going to the 
Staff College of the A. E. F., where instruction was 
hardly in the liberal arts which have precious little 
to do with " going over the top." An ex-secretary 
of war and men prominent in the business world 
found themselves sitting again at schoolroom desks 
and taking books and maps home to cram up for the 
next day's lessons. They were set problems, under 
veteran French and British officers, in the mov^ement 
of troops from one billeting area to another or to 
the front lines, and in their rationing, in sudden 
emergencies in battle, in how to dispose of artillery 
fire in battle, in drawing up plans for attacks and 
counter-attacks. 

" Doping the black stripe " it was called; for one 
day the reserve officer students might wear the black 
stripe of the General Staff on their arms, if in the 
post-graduate course on division staffs they kept 
up their record as pupils. They studied until their 
brains were rattling machine-gun nests under a com- 
bined concentration of gas and high-explosive shells. 
They vied with one another for good marks in reci- 
tations and papers. You heard side remarks about 



PULLING UPSTREAM 153 

some major, who was the father of a family at 
home, being the " white-haired boy " to the school 
commander. Men who had supposed that all there 
was in transferring a division from one sector to 
another was to order it on board a train and then 
march it to its destination, screwed their brows far 
into the night over details that would keep that 
division from being tied into knots. When gradua- 
tion exercises came there were no commencement 
balls or parades. The graduates were given their 
orders where to go, and they went. 

Other schools were busy at the same time: the 
aviation schools turning out aviators, though no 
planes were arriving; a tank school where there were 
just enough tanks for practice; signal schools; artil- 
lery schools, and corps schools, where an ambitious 
sergeant might learn everything which he would 
require to know as an officer of the line; not to 
mention the pigeon schools, where we were breed- 
ing pigeons for messenger service with a rapidity 
which proved that in this branch, at least. Nature 
would soon make up the deficiencies due to unpre- 
paredness. We had pigeon fancier officers as well 
as more and more officers in all kinds of specialties, 
arriving and being instructed for future usefulness 
against the arrival of that first million men. With- 
out the million they would be like lawyers who 
never practiced after admission to the bar. 

Our career as an army, all our desires, were ex- 
pressed in that one word ships, to bring the million 
and then the millions which we knew were the one 
convincing argument to the Kaiser. Each new- 
comer from home was plied with questions about 



154 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

what they were doing " over there," our " over 
there " being home. Yet inquiry was not necessary. 
By some instinct the mood of our people seemed to 
be in our minds. They were with us, oh, yes ! But, 
how with us? We looked to them for our inspira- 
tion, our impulse. They could make the current 
which would force us to pull hard upstream or the 
current that ran our way. Private letters about 
what a community was thinking and doing were a 
revelation of what might be the state of mind of 
the nation; and in those winter days we felt that 
we were pulling upstream. 



XIII 



THE OTHER OVER THERE 

Leave to go home — Transformation of a German steamship — The 
Leviathan passes with ten thousand passengers aboard — A 
different America — An undisciplined people respond to 
authority — The author discovers a new type of American — 
The faith of a democracy — The man in Washington who 
could take time to think — The rush of " helpers " to Wash- 
ington — An impossible programme attacked with American 
energy. 

Yes, the decision was with America. My emotions, 
when I had word that I was to go home for a brief 
midwinter trip, were very different from those when 
I had set out from the front in France on the same 
journey in 19 15 and 19 16. The thought of seeing 
friends and family and my own country, which 
kindle liveHer and more heartfelt anticipations the 
more I travel, were now incidental to the vital curi- 
osity of any returning member of the A. E. F., who 
sought through his own observation an answer to 
the question, " Were we to win the war or not? " 
which had become supremely personal to all men. 

It was enlightening to be on board the transport 
Mount Vernon, formerly the Kronprinzessin Cecilie. 
She had brought four thousand soldiers to France 
and would bring four thousand more on the next 
outward voyage. It was good to see the young 
recruits who formed the crew. Supple and rollick- 

155 



156 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

ing In their sailor jackets, they had already absorbed 
the ways of the sea. There were more where they 
came from In that great country of ours, to man 
other ships; and there were more reserve officers to 
stand watch after they were trained by such regular 
officers as the captain and his first lieutenant. 

They gave the Mount Vertion as many knots an 
hour as she had ever made with tourists lounging 
on her decks in the days when no stretch of the 
imagination would have conceived that the floating 
hotel, which sent its lights gleaming over the sea, 
would become a gliding shadow bearing some of 
those same tourist Americans to Europe, to fight 
against the armies of the husband of the same 
Hohenzollern Princess for whom the ship was 
named. 

Her old German captain and his experienced 
sailormen would not have thought it possible that 
their places could have been taken by landlubbers 
after a few months' training; or that the soldiers of 
a few months training whom those landlubbers saw 
safely In France would overwhelm the best Ger- 
man divisions. Such is American adaptability to any 
new environment, such the different character of the 
training which makes a soldier and a sailor, that it 
was difficult to think of the men of the army and 
the navy as coming from the same class of youth; 
but any Illusions to the contrary passed when the 
bluejackets of the crew, gathered on the floor of 
the steamer's great dining-room, greeted the mo- 
tion picture reels with the same remarks about the 
romantic comedy guy when he was about to kiss 
the romantic comedy lady that you heard from a 



THE OTHER "OVER THERE" 157 

soldier audience in a village in France. Quietly the 
navy went about its routine. Unheralded its de- 
stroyers swept the seas. The navy is the navy, 
modest, yet sure of itself and its traditions. But 
would the country give it enough transports and in 
time? It took the Mount Vernon a month to make 
a turn-around. 

Off Sandy Hook a form that seemed like some 
gigantic headland, too vast for a ship, loomed out 
of the coastal winter mist. It was the Leviathan, 
formerly the German Vaterland, bound on her first 
trip across the Atlantic as an American troopship. 
I know of no sight that could be more pleasing than 
this to a member of the A. E. F. on board the former 
Kronprinzessin Cecilie, and none more displeasing 
to German shipping interests. It had taken time 
to overhaul her, and trial trips were necessary with 
her repaired engines, before she might be intrusted 
to ferry ten thousand men across the Atlantic; but 
there she was, ready for business. Only there were 
not enough Leviathans. We needed a score. 

When I was home from the war in the winter of 
1915-16 and again in 1916-17, I had been sensible 
of the contrast, so often remarked, between dark- 
ened London and New York blazing with lights, 
between Europe in its sacrifice and grief, nerves and 
muscles taut with prolonged effort, and America in 
her prosperity seeing the war as some distant and 
horrible spectacle. What would it be like now after 
it had been our war for over eight months? Life 
in the streets seemed much the same except for the 
presence of men in uniform. But the atmosphere 
was different, very tangibly different. Display had 



158 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

passed. Money had lost its Influence. Men con- 
cealed their enjoyment of the luxuries it provided. 
The talk about markets had changed to talk about 
service. 

It was not a question of how much income you 
were earning or what distinction in your profession 
you were gaining, but what sacrifice you were mak- 
ing, that counted in winning the good opinion of 
your fellows. The man who had not a government 
position or was not in " war work " of some kind 
was as much " out of it " as he would have been in 
the old days if he had not owned an automobile. 
A woman who had been worried about the choice 
of doctors for her ailing pet dog during the critical 
period of the drive against Verdun, while we were 
still neutral, now expressed her misery by saying that 
she seemed perfectly " useless " ; and the woman who 
had told me in 191 6 that she had never kept up her 
interest in anything so long as in this war had a 
son at a training camp who would keep up her inter- 
est for the duration of hostilities. The service stars 
in the flags in the windows of houses and on the but- 
tons that people wore were a new form of social 
distinction, which Mrs. Goldstein of Avenue A and 
Mrs. Bertelli of Rivington Street shared with the 
hostesses of Fifth Avenue. 

" Make it the thing to do " in our democracy 
and we need no law. It was the thing to do to 
ride in day coaches and to get along with fewer 
passenger trains and fewer servants. Though we 
had been characterized as an undisciplined people 
we responded to authority. When the Fuel Admin- 
istrator issued his drastic order closing factories and 



THE OTHER "OVER THERE" 159 

offices for five days to save coal, this invasion of 
the rights of business, which were supposed to be 
sacred to us, was received with the practical thought: 
" Garfield did not do this to be mean; he had rea- 
sons " — which were the figures that the officer had 
written on the pad for me driven dagger-edged into 
Allied conferences and Allied governments. 

We had not felt the pinch of war yet and we were 
not in the war yet, in the European sense. This 
was not surprising. Should the cotton fields, the 
prairies, the gardens of the Pacific coast, feel the 
war as England and France felt it? After that 
voyage of three thousand miles across the Atlantic, 
which isolated us from the struggle, I was amazed, 
in one sense, that we should be taking any part in 
the war. It was easy to understand how the House 
of Hohenzollern, by the logic that built its fortunes, 
could not conceive it possible that we practical Amer- 
icans, when we were secure on our continent, should 
offer our blood in earnest for any European cause. 

I stood in awe of the woman on a remote Western 
farm and of the woman in a tenement who were 
obeying the food rules, and of the sentiment that 
accepted the National Draft without complaint. 
Transpose situations and consider Lorraine in 
France or the county of Dorset in England aroused 
to help Kansas defend herself from Prussianism! 

It was only natural that we should still visualize 
the resources of our country as man-power which 
must bring the Germans to terms; and the con- 
viction that the mere fact of our entry into the war 
would turn the scale of victory still lingered in some 
minds. We were like all people in wanting to hear 



i6o AMERICA IN FRANCE 

good news. Hadn't that German offensive been 
over-advertised? Wasn't it German bluff ? Weren't 
the Allied reports about superior German forces on 
the Western front given out with a view to " throw- 
ing a scare into us " and arousing us to sterner 
efforts? How could the Germans gather such great 
numbers after they had been fighting for three years 
and suffering such tremendous losses as had been 
reported? 

If you said that you thought the offensive was 
coming; that the German Staff, which was not given 
to quixotic military adventures, was going to try 
for a military decision; that the wickedest and most 
powerful military machine on earth could really 
bring thirty per cent of superiority to bear now that 
Russia was out of the war, you might be indicted 
as a pessimist in some quarters, not to mention that 
your appreciation of German strength might be mis- 
taken for faint-heartedness. 

Besides, we could not yet consider Russia out of 
it. Russia had turned to democracy. Our faith in 
Russia was that of democracy's loyalty to democ- 
racy. We thought of Russia as a body of human 
beings like ourselves. There would be a period of 
disorder, but order would come, as a matter of neces- 
sary evolution. Russia would find itself. Trotzky 
with his socialism, defying the German Staff at the 
Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference, appealed to our 
sentiment and pleased our sporting instinct, which 
likes to see the little bow-legged outsider walk in and 
beat the bully. 

If Trotzky's propaganda spread in Germany and 
the German people rose in their might and over- 



THE OTHER "OVER THERE" i6i 

threw militarism, wasn't that what we were fighting 
for? Although Germany's apparent embarrassment 
by Trotzkyism for a time did not deter the War 
Department or the A. E. F. in its preparations by 
one iota, it may have served the purpose of the Ger- 
man Staff in lulling our people with false visions. 
Our faith in Russia did not die even with Trotzky's 
surrender to Hoffmann; or even with reports that 
presented him as a pitiful buffoon, or a shark of 
cupidity. There was something fine in our faith; 
which was the faith of democracy in keeping with 
the principles that had brought us into the war. 

If you had come home from the A. E. F. with a 
mission to arouse people to action you found that 
everybody you met had the same mission. All who 
were not in war work, as I have said, were trying 
to get into war work. If they could not, they urged 
more action; or they were a little weary of hearing 
action urged when they were doing their bit. 

" You say we aren't awake to the war," said one 
of my friends. " I've been working on a draft board 
and worn out my shoe leather going around to 
volunteer for other things. My wife is making 
bandages, my daughter is getting Red Cross mem- 
berships, my only son is in the army and we're doing 
all the foodless, fuelless day stunts. What else? 
Shall I do a clothesless day and get arrested; or 
stand on the doorstep beating a drum? Don't say 
coordination to me ! I'll coordinate with anybody 
or anything; only when I do, I'm told that it's not 
coordination." 

The noise of the war machinery was incessant, 
thunderous, not to mention discordant as the ma- 



i62 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

chlnery was new. The only calm place in Washing- 
ton, where all action centered, was the White House. 
A glance over the fence across the grounds at the 
white pillars, as you passed from one bustling office 
to another, had a quieting effect on an overworked 
nervous system which resolved faculties into some- 
thing like orderly concentration. The man in there 
was apparently looking out of the windows all over 
the country and all over Europe, and seeing the 
whole simply in the movement of great forces that 
must be directed by someone who took time to think. 
That he of all men could take time to think was the 
most wonderful thing about Washington in the win- 
ter of 1917-18. 

Our effort in America, as in France, was in the 
first period of reaction from the great promise of 
the early days of our entry into the war. Critics 
said that we had no programme. Personally, I 
thought that we had a very good one in the Na- 
tional Draft, in leaving war to the experts, in an- 
swering France's call for some kind of troops, in 
building ships and immense numbers of aeroplanes 
and in manufacturing great quantities of munitions. 
How were we carrying out the programme ? Prob- 
ably we had aimed to do too much along too many 
lines. Organizers had not been able to bring accom- 
plishment up to expectation for this very reason, 
which was inevitable to the tremendous application 
of our national energy through governmental chan- 
nels, when, previously, the average man's most inti- 
mate relation with the government had been through 
the post office, and we had had no experience in our 
time in a great military organization. Suddenly 



THE OTHER "OVER THERE" 163 

we all wanted to go into the government; we all 
wanted to help the government deal with its great 
problem. The resultant pressure on those who were 
trying to direct our energy was something that only 
administrators who had characteristic national en- 
durance could have borne. Washington was " mill- 
ing," as the cattlemen say. In France, we had the 
advantage of not having so many advisers on the 
side lines who wanted to rush on the field and kick 
a goal or make a " forward pass." 

If you took up a position in a Washington hotel 
lobby and listened to the knowing whispers of pes- 
simism and the complaints of men who had not 
been given a chance to show how things should be 
done, you might be fully convinced that the war was 
lost unless a lean, upstanding young officer or soldier 
who had been at one of the training camps hap- 
pened to appear. He made all middle-aged reserve 
majors seem superfluous adipose. He was a re- 
minder that at the camps the greatest of all the war 
industries was proceeding — the making of soldiers. 
They were being trained according to sound prin- 
ciples. Would they be in France in time? Would 
there be ships to transport them? 

There was much talk of the unprecedented powers 
which Congress had given to the President, but the 
real dictator in our country is the people. Theirs 
is an irresistible, prodigious, terrific power. When 
nine out of ten Americans think alike on any sub- 
ject, when from coast to coast they say that a thing 
must be done, it is done. We were thinking to- 
gether magnificently, amazingly, in our unity of 
patriotism and in the desire of every citizen to do 



i64 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the right thing to win the war; thinking together 
in the continued pressure that more should be done, 
complaining and grumbling somewhat, but always 
working. 

We had concentrated upon most of the other 
items of our programme, including Liberty Loan 
and Red Cross, but as yet we had not taken up the 
subject of ships in the committee of the whole of 
the hundred million. At least fifty per cent of our 
people had never seen salt water. We were all 
experts in railroads, but ships had never interested 
us. If you mentioned ships, critics might say: 
" Yes, that's another thing — our ship-building pro- 
gramme is going badly. My idea is to get down to 
war bread at once. When are we going to make 
any machine guns?" 
j' One day we would take up the subject; and when 
' we did there would be complaints about riveters 
driving half the customary number of rivets in a 
day. They would have the edict from the American 
Czar. A hundred million forefingers would be point- 
ing at them, a hundred million pairs of eyes cen- 
soring their efforts, a hundred million voices dinning 
an urgent chorus in their ears. Yet shipyards were 
assuming form, while the other parts of the pro- 
gramme were progressing, only results did not yet 
measure up to the impossible standard of accom- 
plishment which American ambition had set. 

The fact was that the national mind was still 
largely concentrated within our own borders on 
home preparations. Everyone knew of someone 
who had the luck to be in France, but our hearts 
were not in France when those in France were not 



THE OTHER ''OVER THERE" 165 

yet fighting. Our hearts were in the training camps 
where our sons were; and our hearts would move 
to France when our sons moved to France by the 
million, and suspense waited on the dread word 
from the War Department when a great battle was 
being waged and casualty lists in the papers were 
being scanned, to the exclusion of other news, to see 
if they carried the name of anyone you knew. 

Then Germany would be cured of any illusion 
that we were not in the war in earnest; then our 
people would be ready for every sacrifice with their 
minds concentrated on the front in France, demand- 
ing, with a ruthlessness which swept all other inter- 
ests aside, that all the power of the nation should 
be directed to the processes of destroying the enemy. 
Everything was working out in our American way — 
our prodigious, energetic way. But would it work 
out in time? Would Hindenburg and Ludendorff 
be able to win a decision before we could bring our 
force to bear in France? 



XIV 



THE SECRETARY COMES 



A very important visitor reaches Paris — Our plans become reali- 
ties — Visit to a great base port — Vast docks and immense 
warehouses— A ten-thousand-bed hospital — A huge supply 
depot for the A. E. F. — Cobwebs of American tracks all over 
France — An immense aviation camp — America transported to 
France — Thrifty French and cool British wonder at us — Secre- 
tary Baker visits the General Staff — And goes into the 
trenches — Sees young men from Iowa in front of " No Man's 
Land " — A review that would have thrilled a man of mud. 



At six-thirty on a dull morning early in March, a 
little man in a derby hat and sack coat alighted 
from a sleeper at the Montparnasse Station in Paris, 
where he was received by representatives of the 
French government and the only two officers of our 
army who were then entitled to wear four stars on 
their shoulders, Generals Pershing and Bliss. The 
presence of photographers with their flashlights 
while reporters pumped questions at him, and the 
fact that he did not have to hunt for a taxicab but 
was whisked away in General Pershing's automobile, 
were further indications that he had more to do 
with the war than the average traveler who was 
not in uniform. Being Secretary of War of the 
United States, he was the most important visitor 
that we could send to Europe, with the single excep- 
tion of the President of the United States. 

i66 



THE SECRETARY COMES 167 

He had long wanted to come and he had long 
been urged to come. But there was the Atlantic 
Ocean to consider again. If he were to spend 
enough time in Europe to be worth the long voy- 
age, it meant that he must be away from his desk, 
in Washington from four to six weeks. 

After he had his breakfast he put on the silk hat 
of democratic officialdom, and set out to pay official 
calls; and after two days of conference with the 
War Council at Versailles, and of meeting the lead- 
ers with whom as a leader he cooperated, he was to 
see with his own eyes what this A. E. F., with its 
insatiable hunger for personnel and supplies, had 
accomplished. 

There was something to show him now without 
calling on his imagination. The transformation in 
the projects of the bases and lines of communication 
during the winter had been marvelous. Blue prints 
of structures that had been planned eight months 
ago were pasted on the walls of structures finished. 
As a motion picture man said, the A. E. F. was at 
last on a motion picture basis, with subjects which 
would bring visual conviction on the " movie runs." 
All the scattered points of our effort had realized 
tangible results within the last two months. I 
thought of them connected in one immense photo- 
graph made by a camera that had all France in its 
focus. 

Organization, which had begun with potentiali- 
ties, had more and more to consider rapidly ex- 
panding realities. New divisions and subdivisions of 
administration were required for the decentraliza- 
tion of detail and the centralization of delegated 



1 68 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

authority. The General Staft system, wlilch had had 
such an enierijeiiey in view, now weaned the business 
of the bases and the lines of conmuinieation and 
set it up in a house by itself. There was a heu:ira 
oi chief ot the signal corps, chief quartermaster, 
chief engineer and surgeon general and all their 
subordinates and clerks to Tours, which became the 
headquarters of the new Service of Supplv, with its 
own commanding general in a sub-kingdom respon- 
sible for all construction and supply. 

As the Secretary had seen our ports on our At- 
lantic seaboard, and as he had crossed the Atlantic 
with a convoy of troops landing at a naval base, the 
next step in a tour which was to follow the soldier 
and his cartridges to the trenches was a visit to one 
of the great base ports of the S. O. S. No tourist 
who ever did Europe in a hurrv in the old davs 
ever saw more than he saw in a given time. Tour- 
ists used to come — how long ago it seems I — to see 
cathedrals and art galleries and old cities and his- 
torical laiidmarks, though some, according to re- 
ports, missed a few cathedrals because they stopped 
such a long time on the boulevards. The Secretary 
was to be shown corrugated iron roofs rising in sight 
of cathedrals, and barracks, machine shops and sheds 
neighbors to villages under red roofs with walls 
softened bv the tone oi time. 

As he alighted from an automobile beyond a city's 
suburbs bv an arm of the sea, the scene of the effort 
before him might have been the Panama Canal in 
Stevens' or Goethal's day, or the Croton aqueduct, 
the Salt lake cut-off. or any similar project in the 
course of construction where steam shovels nod to 



THE SECRETARY COMES 169 

cranes, cement is being mixed and structural ma- 
terial unloaded from flat cars, and engineer and 
contractor and labor and machinery are making a 
monument to man's energy which will serve man. 
The workers might be in uniform, but they would 
make no claims to being military. They were as 
American and working in as American a way as if 
they were in the middle of the United States. 

The only evidence that you were in France was 
the architecture of the buildings in the distance. 
Those finished, great cement quays imposed and the 
unfinished being imposed on the soft bank of the 
water's edge, with a permanency which might indi- 
cate that we expected the war to last a hundred 
years, were an invitation to France to expand her 
commerce after the war in order to keep them from 
remaining idle. Great warehouses and more spur 
tracks were being built and all the appliances were 
coming to unload ships, with the labor-saving facility 
which is our national habit. 

In the piles of cargo landed here, as at the other 
port which he visited, that keen, inquiring, well- 
poised little man might see materialized the requisi- 
tions in the long cablegrams for the monthly routine 
supplies and other requisitions for building anything 
from a barrack to a salvage depot. As an officer 
had said in the early days of the expedition, " Why 
not ask Washington to read the tariff and free-list 
schedules and ship everything on both lists, just as 
a starter? " 

At the other port, a flat car was fitted up as a 
seeing-the-S.-O.-S. car. As it ran out over a spur 
track across swampy land, workers looked up to 



lyo AMERICA IN FRANCE 

see a man in civilian clothes alternately glancing at 
a blue print and at his surroundings and exclaimed: 
" That's Baker and Pershing, too ! " which was the 
personification of a good deal of official authority 
to them. There were more warehouses to be seen, 
of course. One where the contract workers were 
hoisting a girder into position would be finished in a 
week; the other, with the supports just set in the 
cement foundations, in two weeks. Both were in an 
isolated location. Neighbors did not crave their 
company, as they were to store explosives enough 
for a great offensive. And there were piers built 
and piers under way and sites for piers to be pointed 
out. The Secretary might also look over a ten-thou- 
sand-bed hospital under construction, rest camps for 
arriving soldiers, laborers' barracks and a shop for 
assembling locomotives, though soon locomotives 
themselves were to be brought over on ships spe- 
cially constructed for such little details of transport, 
and swung onto the trucks from the hold by giant 
cranes all ready for business. 

It was not the intention of his conductors that 
Mr. Baker should have any time on his trip to go 
fishing. Every officer with a separate command 
wanted to take part in the education of a Secretary 
of War and show him around with a " Watch-our- 
city-grow " enthusiasm. There were still other ports 
where, as a gang foreman remarked, we were spend- 
ing a few millions in making a few improvements 
necessary to conduct the war in a manner unsatis- 
factory to the enemy. But two examples sufficed 
as illustration. It was comprehensible that piers, 
warehouses and spur tracks characterized base ports 



THE SECRETARY COMES 171 

of the A. E. F. ; and comprehensible, too, the im- 
mensity of the task in building them with material 
shipped across the Atlantic. 

Next on the programme was the great depot at 
Gievres in the central plain of France, which was 
to be the principal larder of the A. E. F. When 
I had been there seven months before the only sign 
of progress was a tent so full of blue prints that 
there seemed no room for the authors of the prints. 
They talked of a great cold storage plant with all 
the faith of Joshua in himself after the sun had 
obeyed his order. The plant was now seventy per 
cent completed, if you please, with its enormous 
boilers in place and the piping going into place in 
the vast building where the meat for our army was 
to be kept fresh. More spur tracks ran past the 
doors of the immense acreage of warehouses, and 
one track went out across country to the site of still 
another depot. A huge shed was wholly unoccupied 
except by a few machine guns; it was meant to house 
thousands as soon as they arrived from America. 
Another had enough small arms ammunition to per- 
forate the whole German military system if only 
it would be accommodating enough to expose itself 
at five hundred yards. Other sheds were crammed 
with an amount of food supplies which indicated that 
no American soldier in France need worry about 
having enough to eat for months to come. 

The regulating stations far up the line, and the 
railheads in the zone of advance, and the motor 
convoys beyond that, and, finally, the hungry men 
and guns sent their requisitions to the reserve at 
Gievres, which kept up its stock by requisition on the 



172 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

ports when through runs with consequent economy 
in handling were not practicable. We were building 
spur tracks all over France with the facility of a 
spider spinning webs in a meadow; but the report 
that we were building a railroad across France was 
quite untrue. Our mileage was complementary, for 
local purposes, to the French railroad system, which, 
with its double and four-track lines, would have been 
equal to all demands if it had had adequate rolling 
stock and personnel. 

Along the first of the spur tracks which we had 
built — that from the railroad station at Issoudun — 
had gone all the material to build the aviation city 
which the Secretary saw in being. Here, particu- 
larly, in view of what I had seen in the previous 
August, I felt like the old settler who had occupied 
the shack which was on the site of the new town 
hall of Boomtown. A city that had its own local 
newspaper, its Y. M. C. A, club room and its hos- 
pital had risen, under systematic official direction, 
with the rapidity of a mining camp. It was a com- 
munity by itself, dissociated from the rest of the 
army, enjoying the aristocratic pride of a feudal 
heritage despite its newness which is the privilege 
of all aviation camps, while its interest in the out- 
side world centered in any news about the arrival 
of the Tibertv planes, which meant that more pri- 
vates would be cadets and more cadets would be 
lieutenants and more lieutenants would go to the 
front. 

The officer in command was the ruling prince, 
monarch of all he surveyed on earth and in the air. 
His instructors were his lords and all the students 



THE SECRETARY COMES 173 

of flying, for whom Issoudun existed, were his 
knights, with the "emainder of the five thousand 
souls housed in the cluster of barracks acting as 
retainers. All talked flying and lived flying and ex- 
pressed their ideas in the jargon of flying; and in 
front of the hangars the planes were marshaled for 
an exhibition more interesting as a spectacle than 
warehouses. 

It was the aviators' part in the war; the building 
spur tracks and quays was th-. equally important 
part of other men, with the sublime part in heroism, 
in endurance and in character that of the soldier of 
the line. For no ace aviator was ever worthier of 
honor from his country than the young lieutenant 
who leads his men against a machine-gun nest or 
the private who springs past the hot barrel of a 
machine gun over the prostrate body of a comrade 
to end the gunner's work. All the maneuvers of 
acrobatic flying for training in combat, followed by 
flights in formation, were shown, with no malicious 
intention of giving the Secretary of War and Gen- 
eral Pershing cricks in the back of their necks, but 
as an earnest promise that the personnel was not 
wanting to make another one of our great concep- 
tions become reality, in the conquest of the air and 
the battering of the enemy with showers of ex- 
plosives from the heavens when our aeroplane pro- 
gramme at home should materialize in shipments to 
France. 

The last exhibit of the Service of Supply to the 
foremost of official visitors was a regulating station. 
He had missed many machine shops, hospitals, lum- 
ber camps, Y. M. C. A. huts, bakeries, laundries, dis- 



1/4 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

infecting plants, commissary depots, remount depots, 
ordnance depots, automobile repair shops, spur tracks 
and warehouses because he had kept to the main lines 
of communication, though the spreading tentacles of 
the S. O. S. were reaching every port of central and 
southern France as more officers set out to establish 
new branches in new localities. As a negro steve- 
dore said, " I guess it done open Mistah Bakah's 
eyes — what we's doing over heah." In future, when 
cablegrams of requisitions for the S. O. S. came to 
the Secretary of War's desk he would have visualiza- 
tion of our work in France as his counsellor. 

In one sense, what the S. O. S. had done was very 
wonderful; in another it was a commonplace. We 
had simplv transported America to France; and this 
made the accomplishment wonderful only as Amer- 
ica is wonderful and the Atlantic Ocean is broad. 
The energy which did our building and carried on 
our enterprises at home, from New York's subways 
to the California oil fields, concentrated on a great 
project and workers from hundreds of industries 
and all professions brought together in a single or- 
ganization, meant a revelation to ourselves of the 
power that was in us as a whole. 

The profession that was least needed was the law. 
All the lawyers who wanted to come to France could 
not be judge advocates. The task of fitting the right 
man in the right place had been one of the besetting 
difliculties of the shaking down process from the 
start. Such anomalies as a seaman in charge of a 
mule camp and a man who knew mules acting as 
quartermaster on a transport in the early days could 
easily be remedied by a mutual transfer that pleased 



THE SECRETARY COMES 175 

both the men and the mules; but the problem of the 
listing of the occupations of all officers and soldiers 
from civil life which should furnish groups in every 
line of human skill to draw upon, though it might 
seem a matter of clerical detail, was not easy of 
execution, particularly when the inclination of every 
man was to do something different from what he 
was doing at home before he went to war. 

A watchful eye had to be kept upon the experts 
in every branch of construction in the S. O. S. lest 
their ambition and enthusiasm should lead them to 
overelaborate building, and lest the American habit 
of liking to see business increasing should lead chiefs 
to surround themselves with too much personnel 
and to the overlapping of the activities of other 
departments. An expert who had been subject to 
the supervision of boards of directors having com- 
petition, profits and dividends in mind, now, with 
the nation in its prodigality in time of war at his 
back, rejoiced in the opportunity of the young archi- 
tect who gets a carte blanche commission from a 
multimillionaire to build a house. \n the pride of 
craft and country, he wanted to build a machine 
shop that would last for fifty years. When asked 
if a shed would not serve as well, his answer was: 
" We can do double the amount of work with the 
same amount of personnel by having things up to 
date." He was the expert; his judgment had to be 
trusted; though when General Pershing happened 
around there were enthusiasts who found in him a 
general manager as obdurate as any other in con- 
sidering his stockholders, the hundred millions. 
Thrifty French and cool, observing British wondered 



176 AMERICA l\ FRANCE 

at us at first, and tlicn began to coi\sldcr it they 
had not fallen into old-fashioned ruts and had not 
lessons to learn troni us in the applieation o\ labor- 
saviui]; devices. 

The tireless workers o\ the S. O. S. were serving; 
far awav troni the sound ot the j^uns, with none oi 
the emotional thrills of war to relieve their exacting 
and monotonous tasks, when they wanted to be at 
the front no less than other red-blooded men. Your 
real slacker was not oi nuich use in the S. O. S. or 
anywhere else. A year had aged many oi the re- 
serve officers more than live years would have done 
at home. The end of the war would tind many 
exhausted in strength, facing, without holiday for 
recuperation, the problem of again earning a living 
for their families at their occupations, when the 
former employer might conclude upon looking them 
over that their war service had put them " down 
and out." In their patriotism many sacrificed high 
pay for low pav and an uncertain future. Others 
were as well paid as they had ever been and the 
government had not the best of the bargain in their 
employment. 

To us in the zone of advance, the S. O. S. was 
some vast mechanism which we took for granted, 
as the average city dweller takes the machinery of 
city existence which brings his food or a cab to his 
door for granted. In other words, the S. O. S. was 
ready for the million men in the spring of iqiS. 
The shipping situation was better, as you knew bv 
the smile of the tonnage expert at Headquarters, 
which was no longer a facial mask of optimism, but 
sprang from his inner being. Through all the com- 



TfiE si:ci<i;jAKy comi:^ 177 

ing months, frauj/ht with great events, the supplies 
continued to come. 

It was a swift transformation on a journey of 
swift transformations which took the Secretary on 
the same day from a regulating station across the 
boundary line into the zone of advance, where all 
thought was of fighting, to make a talk to the stu- 
dent officers of the Staff school. Later, he met all 
the officers of the G. S. (General Staff), the " brain 
trust " at Headquarters, and through them and their 
surroundings he might appreciate the growth of the 
organization since General Pershing had begun it in 
the little room in the War Department ten months 
previously and pay a tribute there, as he had at the 
Staff school, to the soldier who had worked out the 
plan and whose leadership had compassed the execu- 
tion of the plan. 

Should the Secretary be taken into the trenches? 
No one was seeking the responsibility of any such 
risk to the person of such a high authority. He set- 
tled the matter for himself. He was going; and his 
decision presented the one delicate problem in show- 
ing him the army. His intention and the time of 
his visit and the point that he was to visit must 
be kept a strict secret, as there were a few thousand 
gunners in the German army who would have liked 
nothing better than to have welcomed him with every 
variety of shells at their disposition. 

When he left Headquarters for his trip to the 
front he was supposed to be going anywhere but to 
the front. En route, he had an introduction to simu- 
lated war in watching a practice attack by troops in 
training, when, with all the accessories of trench 



178 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

mortar fire and machine-gun barrage, they took 
trenches and bombed a strong point in a complete 
victory over the enemy. Then he was to see how all 
the motor trucks and the wagon trains and the light 
railways connected up the trenches with the S. O. S., 
and for the first time he saw the ruins of Lorraine 
villages from shell fire, ruins which American troops 
were now defending. He was to meet that finished 
old master of war, that great, simple French gentle- 
man, General Castelnau, whose name had been asso- 
ciated with the defense of Lorraine from the days of 
August, 1 9 14, when his brilliant and thorough tactics 
held back the German onslaught. Every turn of the 
trench line, all the hills and valleys, the woods, 
the brooks and bridges at the front in Lorraine 
must have been mapped by his long vigil in 
the mind of the General, who was the grand 
patron of our first efforts; a kindly, shrewd, wise 
person. 

Now any visit to trenches is subject to the enemy's 
mood. The officers who came at four-thirty in the 
morning to the old chateau where the Secretary had 
spent the night to conduct him, had reports of a 
good deal of artillery activity in the sector occupied 
by the troops from his own State of Ohio, whom 
he wanted to see in the line. A discussion followed 
among the officers as to the advisability of taking 
him forward under the circumstances. Finally, the 
subject of all their solicitude who had come three 
thousand miles to see the army, remarked: "Gen- 
tlemen, I do not want to risk your lives ! " and the 
way that he spoke and the way that he smiled was 
not unfamiliar in the War Department where su- 



THE SECRETARY COMES 179 

preme authority is not exerted thunderously. That 
ended the discussion. 

A barrier of shell fire prevented his approaching 
the Ohio sector; so it happened that he went into 
the Iowa sector, where his visit was like any other 
visit, except that the division general who conducted 
him would rather have gone over the top than have 
had to take the responsibility connected in his mind 
with the knowledge that " you never know when the 
enemy may decide on a ' hate ' with his guns." The 
Secretary prolonged the ordeal by talking to the 
soldiers and going up to an advanced post and asking 
questions. He was not a cabinet member at that 
moment and he was seeing what every other human 
being who had not been in the trenches before 
wanted to see, as he trod the duck boards and peered 
Into dugouts and looked over parapets at a mass 
of. barbed wire and considered the amazing business 
of men from Iowa, their strong, young bodies 
pressed against the moist walls to let him pass, fight- 
ing on European soil. 

Not a shell burst near him in the trenches; but 
he had better luck when he was back in the car and 
a 105mm. high explosive saluted him at a distance 
of twenty yards. He was quite grateful to the Ger- 
mans for the favor, which added the finishing touch 
of emotion to his tour. In the quiet countryside out 
of the range of the guns as he alighted to look at a 
little American cemetery a burial party was ap- 
proaching, and he witnessed the ceremony of the 
burial of our soldier dead. A few minutes later, 
at the doorway of a hospital he saw the ambu- 
lances arriving with the wounded brought in in 



i8o AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the course of that day's work of an American 
division. 

His observation of all that we were doing in 
France was completed when a regiment of the First 
Division just out of the trenches marched past in the 
open fields upon a little plateau. This was a scene 
to thrill a man of mud. General Pershing, looking 
a keen blade of war, stood at the Secretary's side as 
they reviewed the crowning product of our effort in 
France. Through his chief, the General was giving 
an account of his stewardship to the people at home 
in those firm and sturdy ranks. There could be no 
denying victory to the millions who should be 
formed in the mold of these men. Not one of them 
seemed to have a superfluous ounce of weight; not 
one to have a superfluous ounce of equipment. They 
seemed linked together by their discipline as a single 
unit of thought and action. They were veterans. 
The sign of their experience was in their faces and 
bearing: "You can't show us anything, O Kaiser! 
We know ! " 

' After their march past, the field oflicers were 
assembled to listen to a talk by the Secretary. In 
his civilian garb, his head bared, this son of a doctor 
in Martinsburg, Pa., who had been Mayor of Cleve- 
land before he became responsible for our greatest 
' war efi^ort, seemed to express our democracy and 
i also the thought that as the agent of democracy he 
. gave experts authority to make a real army; and the 
officers, ruddy from exposure, looking a little grim 
under their severe steel helmets, ramrods at atten- 
tion, eyes ahead, seemed to express the power that 
was in that democracy if it set its mind on war as 



THE SECRETARY COMES i8i 

a righteous duty under wise, disciplined direction. 
After his talk he expressed his desire to meet each 
one; and shook each one by the hand and asked his 
name — in keeping with a gift for doing the right 
thing gracefully which comes to Americans who are 
jumped from mayoralties to directing war machinery. 
After this everybody unbent and generals and lieu- 
tenants were good-natured, chatty Americans again. 
With many pictures crowding for place in these 
pages, this one, of the pioneers of our forces now 
trained for any emergency, had the significance of 
association with the end of the first phase of a his- 
tory of the A. E. F. We were coming to the second 
phase, action, when such men as these who had 
marched past were to give the proof of the mettle 
of our manhood and of the faith that was in us. 



XV 



EVERYDAY FIGHTING 

The New England Division goes to a violent sector, the Cherain 
des Dames — Our boys from New England repulse a big Ger- 
man raid with the rifle — A successful raid by the Twenty- 
sixth Division, the first of the National Guard in the trenches 
— The Rainbow Division goes to the front — The old Sixty- 
ninth a thorn in the flesh to the Germans — The New England 
troops long in front of Saint Mihiel — Creating an American 
world in France and in the trenches — The " Buffalo," " Chi- 
cago " and " Oskaloosa " trenches, etc. — Our troops getting into 
the routine of war — With spring comes baseball and optimism. 

The emotions of either the Twenty-sixth, the Forty- 
second or the Second Division, when it was intro- 
duced into the trenches, were much the same as 
those of the First Division, which I have described. 
Although as fighting the experience now seems tame 
fundamentals to the veterans who have helped drive 
the enemy back from the Marne salient, the mid- 
winter hardships which they endured will keep it 
ever vivid in their recollection as a hardening proc- 
ess that fortified them for stirring action later on. 

It was for the French to choose where each 
division should be inducted into the line and to re- 
peat, in each instance, with the thoroughness of their 
Staff curriculum, their painstaking tutorship. Four 
vears of war had taught the French Staff that even 
where veteran French divisions were concerned, there 
must never be any relaxation in the detailed care of 

182 



EVERYDAY FIGHTING 183 

making reliefs, which, as I have noted, became im- 
pressively circumspect when the American infant was 
to be led up to the parapet to look out over No 
Man's Land for the first time. 

The Twenty-sixth was particularly an object of 
paternal solicitude, as it was not to be taken into 
a sector of the Lorraine front, but into that of the 
Chemin des Dames in Champagne, which had be- 
come a synonym for violence during Nivelle's of- 
fensive and later in the fierce German counter- 
attacks through the spring of 19 17. If, for the 
time being, it had quieted down, there was no reason 
to suppose that it had permanently changed its char- 
acter. A German attack was far more likely here 
than In Lorraine, which required that the French 
should keep our young ambition well in hand, lest it 
" start something." The Twenty-sixth was former 
National Guard, too, and the first territorial organ- 
ization to go into the trenches. For this reason, it 
might require more watching than the First, which 
was regular. 

Our New Englanders, very sensitively conscious 
of all warnings, determined to behave most dis- 
creetly and put on their gas masks at every " alert " 
and keep a sharp lookout for German tricks over 
the sea of shell craters in No Man's Land, without 
shooting away their ammunition at imaginary ob- 
jects. But they had an itching for action which was 
not altogether due to the parasites of the dugouts 
which at once took bodily hold; and they were get- 
ting well used to trench rats when something hap- 
pened. 

The Germans attempted a big raid. Well, what 



1 84 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

had General Pershing said about the rifle? The 
New Englanders used it with effect; and when they 
were through they and their trench comrades had 
completely repulsed the Germans. This was the 
great historical event for the Twenty-sixth, until the 
French took some of them for something more 
thrilling than creeping out at night over the shell 
craters in a patrol to feel of the enemy's barbed 
wire, which had been thrilling enough at first. For 
we are an impatient, ambitious people. We want 
to go on to new sensations. The raid was not strictly 
an American one; our detachments went along with 
the French, and of course our instructors were wor- 
ried lest it should not be a success, for our sake. 
It was a perfect success, with no American casualties. 
Twenty-two prisoners, including two officers, were 
brought in. Tell that to Back Bay and Penobscot ! 
The French Staff gave the lieutenants who partici- 
pated a dinner in honor of their achievement. Briga- 
diers who led charges six months later were not so 
honored — everything being relative, as the philoso- 
pher says. 

And do not forget the guns. For the first time 
the Twenty-sixth's artillery had covered an attack in 
practice by their own men. " The artillery worked 
well," said the official reports. Such little tributes 
count when you are in the line for the first time 
after months of training. The wise men at Ameri- 
can Headquarters were saying that, in view of the 
way the Twenty-sixth repulsed other raids and 
of the way that lieutenant stayed out in the shell 
bole and kept his head when the Germaru> laid down 
a barrage, and in view of the conduct of the Twenty- 



EVERYDAY FIGHTING 185 

sixth in general, it might prove to be as good a 
division as the First, while the Forty-second would 
have to work hard if it were to live up to the stand- 
ard the Twenty-sixth had set. 

" What did they think? " said a down-easter from 
Maine — " that we would run away at the sight of 
them Bushes, that we didn't have brains enough to 
learn the rules; that we'd melt in the rain? Why, 
Gosh Almighty, we're growed up and got beards on 
our chins." 

The Twenty-sixth had misery enough in that sec- 
tor to entitle it to its share of the Croix de Guerres 
which were awarded for its exploits, and after a 
month of the Chemin des Dames it thought that it 
deserved a rest, which it would have received if it 
had not happened that the First was now taken out 
of the Toul sector and the Twenty-sixth was sent 
to take its place. It was hard luck, as the Twenty- 
sixth was sure that where it belonged was in face 
of the German offensive as soon as it had washed 
its face and had a nap. 

The F'orty-second had heard all the praise of the 
Twenty-sixth with the serene consciousness that the 
Twenty-sixth was undoubtedly a very good division 
as it was from the United States; but it was pro- 
vincial, while there was only one Forty-second which 
was none other than the Rainbow Division. When 
you have a regiment from New York City, mostly 
Irish-American, and one from Alabama, with the 
other two from Iowa and Ohio, and artillery from 
Illinois and machine gunners from Georgia, all in 
one fold, a staff which shepherds the whole in team 
play need not excite the spirit of competition. As 



1 86 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

to which was the best regiment of the four, do not 
ask the division staff, which thought that all belonged 
to the best division. But a member of the Ohio 
regiment would give you an answer gladly without 
waiting a second for consideration; and so would 
a member of the Iowa, the New York, or the Ala- 
bama regiments. 

The question of whether the chaplain of the New 
York or of the Alabama regiment was the more 
militant is not for an outsider to decide. They do 
say that when the Alabama chaplain talked to the 
men before their big raid in order to incite them 
to action worthy of the regiment's traditions in 
the Civil War, he used a swear-word or two. The 
colonel, whose evidence we must accept as purely of- 
ficial, insists that as the words are to be found in 
the gospel and were used purely in the line of duty, 
thev were free from any of the associations of pro- 
fanitv which would have characterized them if they 
had been used by a private when he was chasing a 
German along a trench. 

Going into the quiet Luneville sector, the Forty- 
second had more freedom of action than the Twenty- 
sixth had had; in fact it soon had the sector under 
its own command. The sector did not remain quiet, 
because the Forty-second did not see any reason 
whv the Germans should continue in control of No 
Man's Land. The Forty-second was in France to 
make war and it made war by starting raids imme- 
diately. If the Germans interfered by machine-gun 
fire — why, charge the machine guns ! Prisoners were 
wanted for identification and the Forty-second took 
prisoners, rounding up German patrols in the night 



EVERYDAY FIGHTING 187 

and generally breaking up the tranquil existence of 
that part of the line. Raids became almost as pop- 
ular as going for the mail to a country post office. 
Everybody must have part in one, and when a raid 
carried through to the second German line without 
finding any Germans there was severe disappoint- 
ment, as in order to fight you must have someone to 
fight against. Individual tacticians, talking the mat- 
ter over in the trenches, said that if they were only 
given a chance for a big attack they would make 
trouble enough to force Hindenburg to bring over 
some of the divisions concentrated for his offensive 
in the West in order to restore a broken line in 
Lorraine. 

" They're telling us that when we're out in front 
and we're attacked to fall back on points of resist- 
ance," said a New York Irishman. " Orders is 
orders, but to my mind that's only another word for 
retreating and I don't believe in it. Now ye take 
mesilf, and you, Mike Cooney — ye know ye're spoil- 
ing for a fight though ye're smiling like an angel — 
and you, Pete Noonan, and you, Schmidt — you're a 
good man though you're a Dutchman — and two or 
three others I could name and give us an extra 
bandolier of cartridges apiece and some of them 
guinea footballs (hand grenades) and let the Bushes 
come ! 'Twould be a fine party. I see your eyes 
glistening, Mike Cooney, at the thought of it. Sure, 
we'd be thinking we was digging the New York sub- 
way when we was burying the dead Bushes the next 
day." 

Our artillery did not lack practice, particularly on 
that occasion when we prepared for a raid so thor- 



i88 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

oughly that only a torn German coat was found on 
the position when the infantry arrived. For every 
shell the German sent we sent two shells in return. 
This was characteristic of the whole system of the 
Rainbows. They were out for mastery over the en- 
emy at every point, which indicates, through the 
medium of the Rainbows, that when we do go to 
war we do not think in defensive terms. 

" I reckon folks will learn, seh, that we ain't 
scairt of the Hun," as a man from Georgia moun- 
tains said. 

Such was the Rainbows' record that the wise men 
at Headquarters were saying that it was a question 
if the Forty-second would not prove itself just as 
good as the First — though the wise men did not 
want any division to run away with the notion that 
it did not have a lot to learn yet. 

The Forty-second was marching back to its rest 
area when the German offensive of March 21st 
required that it retrace its steps to the trenches, 
where it remained for another three months, thus 
relieving French divisions for other work, before it 
had its turn in the big battle. Of course, the skillful, 
businesslike Second, which was regular and Marine, 
must also be considered and very decidedly in Head- 
quarters' discrimination about excellence. The sec- 
tor where it was to have its baptism of fire was just 
east of Verdun and associated with the River Meuse, 
which shares fame with the Marne in the war, while 
the character of the sector placed the Second strictly 
under French command, its units interspersed among 
the French. There was no need of stirring up enemy 
activity here. The German was always on his mettle 



EVERYDAY FIGHTING 189 

as if that were the very inheritance of the region. 
The Second knew what it meant to suffer the drain 
of casualties from persistent shell fire upon roads and 
trenches; and it learned to expect raids any night, 
and that every precaution against gas was worth 
while, and that you had to restrain your ardor under 
French command. 

On April 14th the Germans made a raid which 
was very much in earnest. At Maisey two com- 
panies were in a position which the French had 
thought of abandoning because of its bad tactical 
situation. The enemy took all possible care to give 
the Americans a taste of Class A, Prussian warfare. 
Their forces were one company of storm troops and 
two other companies, which advanced under the 
cover of a box barrage after a heavy bombardment 
of the rear area. When the barrage lifted, our men 
came out of their dugouts in the darkness at 12 : 30 
in the morning to see indistinct figures in their 
trenches in French uniform, one of whom cried 
"Gas!" The Americans discovered the ruse just 
as they started to put on their masks. At the cry 
of " Boche ! " the fight began with the ferocity of 
such affairs at close quarters, every man concerned 
with some shadow in the darkness. Plain language 
was used and plainer methods of controversy. 

Meanwhile, in the obscurity of the night, the 
storm troops had penetrated the sub-sector and 
started back with a few prisoners whom they had 
" breached," including a doctor who was spending 
a night at the front as an experience which, as it 
happened, he had in full. In crossing No Man's 
Land some of the prisoners concluded to take a 



I90 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

chance against an enforced holiday in a German 
prison camp. One American knocked down his 
captor, seized his rifle, and after bayoneting him, 
found the way back to our trenches. There was a 
" miUing " of shadows in the gloom, with the result 
that other Americans escaped. The German intelli- 
gence service, which was seeking information about 
the character of the American soldiers, might make 
interesting notes the next day. When casualties were 
counted the Americans had the best of the bargain, 
which was not as it should be in the Ludendorff 
lexicon, considering that the Germans had used a 
company of " storm troops " against a " Yankee 
mob"; and our companies were cross because it 
was time to be relieved and they were not allowed 
to make a counter-attack. 

But we were not boasting, as this was strictly 
against the rules. We were a modest, young, learn- 
ing army, always bearing in mind when the French 
said nice things that they were a polite people; and 
when they intimated what a lot we had to learn we 
made it our business to learn it, or the wise men at 
Headquarters would no longer be hinting that your 
division might become the best in the army. Yet we 
were pleased at the thought that to date in our 
dealings with the Germans the balance had been in 
our favor. As a matter of cool, professional fact, 
Major General Bundy had a right to be proud of 
the Second, and Major General Robert L. Bullard, 
who had succeeded Major General Sibert in com- 
mand, proud of the First, which had been two 
months in the Toul sector. 

Holding the Toul sector was not an agreeable 



EVERYDAY FIGHTING 191 

business. It was like sitting at the foot of the stairs 
and having a fellow at the top throw rocks at you 
from behind a curtain. The advantage is all with 
him rf he has a nasty disposition. Resting on the 
trench fortress the French line here occupies one side 
of that famous Saint Mihiel salient, which on the 
map looks an anomaly that ought to be squeezed out 
of existence by pressure from both sides. After their 
" nibbling " to this end in 19 15, the French, who had 
punished the Germans in a period of merciless artil- 
lery fire, were satisfied to rest on a stalemate in this 
region. The Germans occupied a line of hills which 
made their retention of the salient practicable. 

Will any American who has ever served in the 
Toul sector forget Mont Sec, grimly, contemptuously 
staring down at him? The very name. Dry Moun- 
tain, was an exasperation to men trying to maintain 
trenches in swampy land. At least, the First made 
the Germans uncomfortable in an era of raids and 
artillery pounding, which established a mastery in 
the detail of trench combat as an example for other 
American divisions, which were always taking notes 
from its experience. 

"What I would like to do," said a soldier, who 
came out of the trenches with only his eyeballs un- 
encrusted with mud, " is to have about five thousand 
long-range guns with five hundred million rounds of 
ammunition, and then I'd like to sit back in a sunny 
place, lapping up an ice cream soda — oh, go on ! 
Did you hear me say it? Ice cream, Buddy! — and 
shoot up that whole outfit all night and all day for 
a few weeks." 

The First and the Twenty-sixth, which also had 



192 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

long service in face of Mont Sec, would have almost 
preferred taking Mont Sec to taking Berlin. Mont 
Sec was to become a personal matter to tens of 
thousands of American soldiers. At least, they 
would like to have possessed part of it in order that 
the fighting might start fair. They would have 
charged up its slopes gladly if such rashness were 
permitted by the personages of the Staff who ride 
about in automobiles looking over personnel and 
ground and sit up late at night over maps and 
reports. If there were anything to make soldiers 
want to go into a real charge in utter abandon in 
the big battle, which must be fair hghting, it was 
the First's experience under Mont Sec for two 
months. Mont Sec was a leash to make dogs of 
war chafe. 

I have already referred to how, wherever we went 
In France, we began making an American world; 
not from any absence of appreciation of French 
hospitality, but in the natural course of doing things 
according to our habits and customs and in the very 
enthusiasm of our national youth. There may not 
be any American race except the Red Indian, but a 
few years after a young immigrant arrives in Amer- 
ica, although he would not be assimilated if he 
crossed the border into another country in Europe, 
he Is as Inherently an American as a Frenchman 
Is French. We had created an American world at 
our bases, depots and along our lines of communica- 
tion; in the area where our divisions trained; and 
now we had one at the front, which completed the 
stretch from sea to No Man's Land. If that at 
the front had not the structural background of our 



EVERYDAY FIGHTING 193 

building in the S. O. S., it was, in another sense, more 
efiectivcly American as you entered an area where 
every human being was an American and an Amer- 
ican fighting man. 

We were no longer novices in trench routine. 
Our battalions relieved one another in the front line 
with professional facility. At first, we may have 
exposed ourselves unnecessarily; but that is better 
than too much timidity. A soldier who is too fearful 
that he may be hurt at the outset of his service in 
the trenches will be very badly hurt in the end. 
Our men when off duty in the trenches could sleep 
in dugouts under shell fire with the best of the 
French veterans. Two or three experiences which 
led to too many unnecessary casualties from gassing 
cured a whole division in each instance of careless- 
ness. Among the other firsts of the First was the 
taking over of a divisional sector under direction of 
an American divisional staff. This was one of the 
milestones of our military progress; another had 
been the formation of our first Army Corps Staff 
under Major General Hunter Liggett, whose direc- 
tion of our pioneer divisions in an actual corps sector 
was delayed by their dispatch to Picardy. 

Nowhere in the A. E. F., then, had the trans- 
formation in February and March been more re- 
markable than in the combat zone; here the nega- 
tive had developed in a complete picture, as it must 
for each sector we held before we took over an- 
other. I have also mentioned that when Americans 
were the protagonists the commonplaces of war be- 
came interesting to the American. Thus, my first 
glimpse of the Toul sector, when it was our very 



194 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

own, gave to every detail, familiar through four 
years of observation, an appeal as fresh as all I saw 
in following up the French army in its pursuit 
of the Germans from the Marne in 19 14. It was 
our world of command there at division headquar- 
ters. Our officers, no longer students under French 
direction, with maps of tactical dispositions which 
they themselves had made on the wall, were doing 
business with the confident manner of old hands, 
arranging for patrols and raids, receiving reports 
and dispatching orders, telephoning to brigade and 
corps headquarters, keeping account of ammunition 
and transport, controlling retaliatory and interdic- 
tory shell fire, keeping In touch with batteries and 
battalion P. C.'s night and day, ready for any 
emergency, and talking at mess of their work In the 
enthusiasm of the junior partner in the Allied con- 
cern which has set up a branch house responsible 
for the trade in a certain district. We had learned 
the technique from our instructors and were still 
learning, but we were going ahead in our own way. 
It was our world, too, in the villages under our 
own majors at the rear, where our battalions out 
of the trenches rested beyond the range of habitual 
shell fire but subject to bombing from the German 
planes on occasion; our world, too, at the ammuni- 
tion dumps and supply depots and railheads and 
where columns of motor trucks stood at rest or were 
in movement; our world forward toward the sound 
of the guns, where a military policeman took care 
to warn you of your mistake if you had not obeyed 
the wayside sign to put your gas respirator at the 
" alert " and where cellars under the ruins of a vil- 



EVERYDAY FIGHTING 195 

lage were reenforced for protection against shell 
fire for a regimental or a battalion commander's 
dugout or for housing troops in support; our world 
in the zone, beyond the automobile limit, where the 
roads were empty by day and the land lifeless to 
view except for a dispatch rider or one or two 
moving figures suggestive of stray travelers in the 
desert, and where, if no guns happened to be firing, 
the rattle of a machine gun might break the silence 
as abruptly as the pecking of a woodpecker in a 
silent wood; our world where batteries were hidden 
under their camouflage and gunners lounged about 
ready for orders to fire or orders to take cover in 
their dugouts under a sudden concentration of fire; 
our world where signboards indicated the Buffalo 
or the Chicago or the Oskaloosa trench; our world 
out in the outpost trenches in a swamp where men 
stood in water to their hips or stood on dry duck 
boards; our world out in isolated machine-gun posi- 
tions in support, where two men waited and watched, 
never taking their eyes off a certain sector which they 
might have to sweep with their fire; our world, 
where you heard practical talk about minor tactics 
and dream talk about grand strategy from young 
lieutenants, while they served you corned beef hash 
and canned corn and American crackers and shot a 
stream from the tinned cow into your coffee cup — 
which Is not any conscious attempt to make a long 
sentence in tying a number of impressions together 
in order that parents at home may see what their 
sons are doing In an American sector. We were 
getting used to war; settling down to its orderly 
processes. 



196 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

At nightfall, the engineers took their picks and 
shovels aiui their lives in their hands and went out 
to their digging or to lay harbed wire with that con- 
scientious ertort to avoid noise which the conse- 
quences of a burst at shell tire teaches. Drivers of 
supply and amnuinition wagons had learned to be 
owls who slept by day and labored by night, as they 
moved along the roads not knowing what minute a 
scream and a crack and a circle of light from a shell 
might put a wagon out of business. Everybody con- 
cerned now had enough sense, when he heard the 
scream of a big shell or when the first shrapnel broke 
in his vicinity, to disregard curiosity and seek the 
nearest protection. 

Hot meals in the " marmites " were carried from 
the rolling kitchens to the men in the front line with 
punctual regularitv. Relieving battalions went up 
with the steady tramp of strength renewed to take 
the place of tired men, whose steps scraped a little 
on the road as thev returned to have their old 
clothes put thrcnii^h the disinfecting machine that 
kills the " cooties," and to know the joy of clean 
underclothes against clean skin, and, after a sleep, 
to go over to the " Y " and see the movies and write 
letters and read the '' Stars and Stripes " and rest 
until they were sent back to the line. 

" Deloused and Y. M. C. A.'ed." we called the 
process. 

The " Y," too, had settled down to its stride, and 
the Red Cross had made Toul an important base of 
its activities. Practice had shown the auxiliaries w'ho 
were real workers and who were not in their part 
as adjunct to that of the gallant army hospital corps 



EVERYDAY FIGHTING 197 

men, who brought the litters with wounded back 
from under fire to stations where the ambulances 
took them to the hospitals. Doctors were also be- 
coming accustomed to the daily casualty lists, which 
mi^rht be suddenly increased when some action out 
of the ordinary routine occurred. Pwerytliing was 
being done with a thoroughness in keeping with all 
(;ur training and plans. 

A new jargon was spoken in the old haunts of 
tfiat of the poilu which has been so confounding to 
(he purists of the I'Vcnch academy. A fight was a 
" party." " We smeared " the enemy with our artil- 
lery fire. We " shot up the whole works " and " put 
one over " on the enemy " right on the bean," and 
we admitted the fact when he made a " hot come- 
back " at us. Nobody wanted to be called " Sammy " 
or " Buddy " in the newspapers. " Yanks " was 
more acceptable; and in any event every private was 
a "boy." "Fanned!" exclaimed a soldier when a 
bullet struck against the parados of a trench v/ithin 
an inch of his ear. "Attaboy!" greeted a patrol 
returning with prisoners. "You're pinched!" 
greeted German prisoners breached from a dug- 
out. " Game called on account of rain," remarked 
a soldier when our guns laid down a barrage that 
stopped a Cjerman raid. 

When spring came in the Woevre and in Lorraine 
with a premature burst — which v/as followed by a 
relapse — our spirits rose with the sap in the trees. 
There was really sun in sunny France, its vitalizing 
glow drying the trenches and inviting men out of 
doors under soft, blue skies. This meant marble 
time at home for " kid " brothers, while big brothers 



198 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

in France brought out mitts, balls and bats and laid 
out diamonds on the outskirts of the villages. The 
lengthening days gave pitchers time to try out their 
curves in the streets in front of their billets after 
supper with a view to future games for the honor 
of their units. Men who had fallen out of the habit 
of baseball at home found it an added relief from 
homesickness. 

Bare fields were showing green, the woods, from 
skeleton trunks and limbs, were transformed into 
soft masses of green and the trees along the roads 
and the canals and rivers shook out their parasols 
of green. Women and old men were digging in 
the gardens. The landscape of France was smiling 
under the sun of France. It took more than a Ger- 
man offensive to restrain American optimism when 
summer was at hand, when our army was coming 
into its own and when we hardly required reports 
from home to assure us that the heart of our people 
was now in France. This seemed to come to us in 
telepathic wave forces from the gathering force in 
the other " over there " which was the best cure of 
all for homesickness. We were no longer puUing 
upstream. 



XVI 



ALL WE HAVE 

The great German oflFensive of March 21st — Superiority of German 
interior lines and man-power — A thousand Germans to one 
Briton at critical points — No " limited objective " offensive — 
A great but not a complete success — Pitiable procession of 
refugees — Bulldog British and fiery French give way but won't 
yield — What America did to stem the tide — Foch and unity of 
command — General Pershing offers the American array to 
Marshal Foch — The bridge of ships. 

The German army was now to take a hand in the 
Secretary's visit and relate it to a great crisis and 
great decisions. He had reviewed the First Di- 
vision on the afternoon of March 20th. On the 
morning of March 21st, when he arrived at French 
headquarters with General Pershing to confer with 
General Petain, the thunders of the artillery of the 
German offensive were audible. Concentration of 
shell fire along the proposed route interfered with 
his plan of going over the old battlefields of the 
Somme on his way to British headquarters, where 
the evening found the news still vague; but in Eng- 
land, where he later spent two days in conference 
with leaders, there was no lack of definiteness in 
the brief and merciless bulletins which showed the 
German battle line advancing. Not since it learned 
the truth of the retreat from Mons, with von Kluck's 

199 



200 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

army approaching Paris, had London had such a 
gloomy Sunday. 

Ludendorff had kept his promise of a mighty 
blow, though not in Lorraine which he had adver- 
tised as the location with a view to drawing French 
reserves to the East. Prepared to attack In either 
Champagne or Picardy, he could swing his reserves 
right or left toward either sector along very short 
interior lines. Though the British and French Staffs 
had considered the offensive Imminent and thought 
that it would be in Picardy, they were at the tactical 
disadvantage of not knowing the exact point where 
its greatest weight would be brought to bear. 

The Germans had planned such a sudden, terrific, 
irresistible thrust as they had made at Caporetto. 
They reasoned that the French army was already 
exhausted. Crush the British army back upon its 
bases, separate It from the French army and then 
the French would be at their mercy. America could 
put no considerable force Into action until the most 
stupendous and daring military conception of the 
war should have been accomplished. If report be 
<:rue, Ludendorff had given his word to the Kaiser 
that he would win peace by Imposing his will upon 
the enemy. Llis confidence in himself was complete. 
His superiority in man-power over his adversaries 
was to be translated Into a hundred and two hundred 
per cent along the front of action, into five hundred 
and a thousand at critical points. He relied upon 
more than strategic plan and the adaptation of tacti- 
cal dispositions to gain his object; upon that industry 
in preparation of detail which leaves out nothing 
that prevision can foresee and application accom- 



ALL WE HAVE 201 

pllsh; upon such masses of artillery as had never 
before been brought together with its power unre- 
vTaled by the ordinary method of registration. 

The troops which he had trained with a sinister 
thoroughness for their task, and blooded to their 
task with the confidence born of past successes on 
;.he Eastern front and of a promise of their repetition 
on the Western front, knew that the winning of their 
goal meant that Germany was master of Europe. 
They might then choose their place in the sun; and 
lay an indemnity on France which should make her 
the servant of German power. 

Fresh from their long rests, the chosen attack 
divisions were not to be bound by the traditions of 
*' limited-objective " offensives on the Western 
front. Instead of advancing to a given line and 
then settling down to organize it under shell fire, 
they were to sweep through the front line and sup- 
port trenches to the capture of the guns and keep 
on, throwing division staffs into confusion and 
breaking up organizations, as they dragged forward 
their trench mortars and machine guns, all accord- 
ing to their rehearsed procedure to win a great 
victory by superior maneuvering in concentrating 
masses in a new war of movement. The fiercest 
impact would be at the junction of the British and 
French armies to take advantage of lack of coopera- 
tion in summoning prompt defense. 

In part, this plan succeeded, for several reasons. 
Earlier in the year the British had taken over a part 
of the line from the French, thus weakening their 
density. The strength of the attack was beyond 
Allied expectations. We were too firmly established 



202 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

in our confidence in the defensive power of the 
trench system. We lacked an adequate second line 
of defense where we could rally our forces. Yet 
Ludendorff did not accomplish his ultimate purpose. 
His failure was partly due to German ignorance 
of French and British character. The Anglo-French 
armies began effectual resistance just at the time, 
svhen, according to the German book, they ought to 
have been in full rout. Though the Allies had com- 
mitted their share of blunders in this war, one of 
the chief German blunders had been in relying at 
the wrong time upon Allied blunders. 

But the result was harrowing enough for one who 
had seen the British and French in the Somme battle. 
Biaches, Thiepval, Pozieres and other points which 
had been won by the hammering processes of siege 
tactics had passed into German hands within a week. 
For the first time, since 19 14, refugees were again 
on the roads. Many of them were making their 
second flight. They had returned to the ruins of 
their homes after the German retreat to the Hinden- 
burg line and begun repairing their fortunes. They 
had done their fall plowing in 19 17 and their spring 
planting in 19 18, thinking themselves secure until 
suddenly the storm broke in the distance and came 
crashing forward. With what they could carry they 
again set out; the well-to-do farmers with their 
household goods piled on their carts drawn by their 
sleek Percherons, and boys and girls driving cows; 
the townspeople pushing baby carriages piled with 
their treasures, and old men and old women under 
heavy burdens and little children plodding along be- 
side them, some in their best black clothes and bon- 



ALL WE HAVE 203 

nets and hats — which was the easiest way to carry 
them — as if they were going to church; and gray- 
haired farmers with shirts and trousers earthstained 
and schoolboys in their smocks with their books 
under arms. All they held dear, all they had rebuilt, 
the promise of their crops and gardens and their 
Ir'bor lost — all except the thing in their blood, their 
hearts, their souls that made them French. The 
German communiques took pains to mention too, 
where the Germans had gained ground not fought 
over before which turned people out of homes never 
before under fire. 

" I'm used to it," said a peasant woman, who was 
making her second flight, to one who was making 
her first. " There is no use of complaining, my 
dear. Never mind if you have no relatives in the 
back country, you'll find friends there who will share 
their homes. It's only prosperity that makes people 
unkind. Adversity makes them kind." Our Red 
Cross, which exists for such work as this, and had 
the funds to carry out such work, had its oppor- 
tunity. 

Emotion was fluid, destiny playing toss v/ith 
death, horror was young again as in 19 14; and the 
v/ells of pity which had gone dry were filled to over- 
flowing again. Minds set into molds that had been 
taking war as normal existence could rei.pond as 
they had not for three years to the sight of :-ufiEer- 
ing. The monster was out of his trench lair, on 
the move, and the uncertainty was as taut and inex- 
pressible as in the first battle of the Marne — which 
was good news for the Kaiser. The most High of 
Hohenzollerns had Himself taken this battle under 



204 AMKRU A IN FRANCF. 

His patronage. \\c had won a great \lctorv: great 
numbers ot prisoners, great quantities of material. 
\Ve had taken another lesson from the Cierman 
masters of war. which was reaction to war in the 
open; but in return, otie day on tiie Marne where 
Joftre gave the Ciermans a lesson, Amerieans were 
to aid General Foeh in giving them another. 

After the fearful experiences of the British Fifth 
Army, the British soldier inhibited to trench war- 
fare with little experience in open warfare, was 
somewhat in the frame of mind of a man caught 
abroad naked. He might be da/ed, but he was not 
panic-stricken as he trudged along in retreat with all 
his equipment on his back. Reform him into an 
organization and he would give the same stubborn 
account of himself as on former occasions. This 
was his nature. It could not be changed by Luden- 
dorfl in order that the Kaiser might make a theatric 
speech in a Channel port as he looked across at hated 
England. 

The French soldier, thrifty in the trenches, and 
calculating at the sight of the refugees and of his 
comrades in flight, responded with all the fiery spirit 
he had shown on the INIarne. Although Ludendorflt, 
with his interior lines, had his reserves at the hub 
of the wheel and might run them down a spoke while 
we had to move around the rim to meet his con- 
centrations, the French divisions and the French 
cavalry, too, were on time as the French have a fac- 
ulty of being. Civilization took a full breath again 
when the Germans were stopped and a new line was 
draAvn on the map within nine miles of Amiens. 

All illusions were over in any man's mind at the 



ALL VVi: HAVJ-: 205 

si|:(ht of rhc refugees. As they touched the heart 
r;f the observer it was hoped that they v/ould touch 
the heart of all America. Germany stood revealed 
as having no peace to offer except on the terms 
pledged in the ambitions of an offensive of which, 
as we were assured, we had seen only the first move. 
JJreamcrs, who had had faith in a democratic move- 
ment rising within Germany while Ludendorff 
massed his divisions and guns, might now realize 
that all German classes were as thoroughly cor- 
rupted by the prize of profit by conquest held out by 
the German Stafi as any crew of pirates that ever 
took to the seas. 

Germany was as war mad as in the days when 
her troops swung through Belgium, leaving a trail of 
destruction behind them. Nothing could unsaddle 
the men who rode her war horses, except the thrust 
of steel. Never had the issue been so clear; never 
had force been more surely the only means to an 
end. 

Civilization might take a full breath of relief, 
but civilizati'jn must also realize that the Germans 
had superior numbers and the advantage of initiative 
and position. 7 heir losses had not exceeded those 
of the Allies; possibly they had been less. We had 
lost much material. With all Lurope war-weary, 
Germany looked to the marshaling of enough di- 
visions in succeeding thrusts to weaken the Allied 

'/ill until it broke. Faith in speedy victory spurred 
i.he German soldier, while the British and the French 
were to " stone-v/all " again as they had at the first 
battle of Ypres and the French had at Verdun. 

Another drive, gaining the same depth as that of 



2o6 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

March 2ist-2 8tli, toward Paris would bring the city 
under German gunsl Another toward the Channel 
would drive the British army, which already had 
none too much room for maneuvering, hack upon 
its bases. After four years of war in which tens of 
millions had been engaged, it seemed possible that 
twenty-live or thirty fresh attack divisions might 
decide the fate of the world. 

The American ofHccr who had written the figures 
on the pad in December and said that '' it was up 
to us " was a true prophet. After his return from 
London, Secretary Baker had a conference with Gen- 
erals Persiiing and Bliss in Paris, while the Cicr- 
mans were still making strides toward Amiens, 
which even the most sceptical about posterity's judg- 
ments will surely consider as of vital historical im- 
portance. It considered what we could do to aid 
in the crisis; and considered, too, the question of 
unity of command in which General Pershing iiad 
been deeply interested from the first. In the course 
of conversation on board ship in crossing the At- 
lantic he had said that some one man — it did not 
matter whether he was a Frenchman or a Briton — 
must have the power of coordinating effort and 
plans and o making decisions in the midst of action 
on the Western front. After his arrival in France 
he continued to express the same view, but, 
naturally, our influence in Allied military coun- 
cils was very limited in the early days of our expe- 
dition. 

The Supreme War Council at Versailles had in 
no sense meant unity of command. It was only a 
body which sought unity of effort through the com- 



ALL WE HAVE 207 

promises of conferences. General Foch was sup- 
posed to have a mobile strategic reserve placed at 
his disposition to meet the very emergency which 
had found him without any adequate force for a 
counter-attack. Instead of assigning him British 
reserve divisions, the War Council had left the Brit- 
ish to take over more line from the French. 

Where the threat of the German offensive on the 
Western front had led to the establishment of the 
War Council, now the German offensive revealed in 
its telling application the disadvantage of divided 
against single command. Those who had conceived 
the Council as a means of gratifying public opinion 
in December were under renewed pressure to take 
the step which should have been taken in December. 
Many cross currents were at work in that critical 
time in inner circles of influence, and they brought 
forth the announcement that General Foch had been 
made commander of the Allied armies; but, taken 
with the private reports that one heard, the an- 
nouncement seemed to make the character of his 
authority uncertain. Fortunately, Secretary Baker 
was on the spot, and he might state his views to the 
Allies and also direct to the President as the re- 
sult of first-hand information. His cablegram was 
hardly on the wire when the President, who had 
intuitively grasped the situation, anticipated the re- 
ceipt of his request by compliance in one of his own. 
A. few felicitous words from him congratulating Gen- 
eral Foch upon his appointment, at a juncture when 
our influence in Allied affairs had great weight, 
seemed to be a graceful and definite means of con- 
firming the new commander in complete authority. 



2o8 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

On the morning of March 28th, after the con- 
ference, General Pershing's desire now having the 
President's approval, he hurried to General F'och, 
whom he found in his garden at his new headquar- 
ters. He took General Foch by the arm and walk- 
ing to one side, informally in the impulse of his 
emotion, speaking in French, offered, as commander 
of the American army, all our troops and all our 
material in France to General Foch to do with as 
he pleased. His words were written out as they 
were remembered. When they were published they 
thrilled all France and all America. Coming at the 
same time as the President's congratulations, they 
led the public to think that unity of command was 
an accomplished fact, but it was not, as later devel- 
opments were to prove. 

General Pershing's offer meant the postponement 
of the idea of a distinct American sector of opera- 
tions which would have soon become a fact. We 
had. at the time, four divisions with experience in 
the trenches of quiet or relatively quiet sectors. 
Two other divisions were practically formed, al- 
though awaiting their artillery. Their occupation of 
any part of the lines was at least releasing French 
soldiers for service elsewhere, but this was police 
work compared to resisting the German offensive. 
There was not a soldier of ours in the trenches or 
out of the trenches who did not feel that his place 
was in the great battle. To their reasoning we must 
be represented there or we were " not playing the 
game." Every sentiment that ever called any brave 
man to the side of a comrade called us to Picardy. 
Besides, all we had in France, all those structures 



ALL WE HAVE 209 

we had down in the S. O. S. — what use were they 
if the Germans should win a decision? We might 
bring our milHons; but where would be their fighting 
ground? 

Of the four divisions the First, of course, had 
had the most experience. Some professional ob- 
servers were not certain whether or not even the 
First was fit to be thrown into the vortex of a vio- 
lent battle. Others said that there was no division 
in France which could equal it in an oliensive. They 
wanted to see it in a counter-attack; and our men 
put the seal on this opinion with their thought that 
maybe if they had not had enough schooling they 
could fight. Let them at the Germans! The sequel 
of the announcement that we would give all we had 
in any service was that the First was to be relieved 
from the trenches in the Toul sector and to entrain 
for the battle area. 

The divisions already formed did not represent 
all our war strength in France. We had our organ- 
ization thoroughly and systematically built in prep- 
aration for larger responsibilities. In the camps 
at home were a million and a half men who had 
been as thoroughly trained as they might be in a 
short time three thousand miles from the battle- 
field. They waited on the bridge across the 
Atlantic. 

Our programme of troop transport, with its grad- 
ual increase as we built shipping, no longer applied 
when the Allied house was on fire. Ships must be 
found, Dutch, Japanese, any kind. The man-power 
of America must be brought to France. England 
had shipping to spare when disaster on the old 



2IO AMERICA IN FRANCE 

Somme battlefield called for a " speeding up " which 
nothing else had effected. At the Abbeville confer- 
ence later, she agreed to supply the bridge, and in 
return a number of divisions were to be assigned to 
Jier army for training and for use in emergency. 



XVII 

OUR FIRST OFFENSIVE 

The First Division being groomed for action — Use for billiard 
table in war — General Pershing's straight talk to the first 
American division to enter a battle in Europe — General 
Bullard — Business details of moving twenty-seven thousand 
men — French food for Yankee fighters — Approaching a sector 
ef fighting in the open — The First takes it over from the 
French — Getting ready for the first real American attack — 
In front of Cantigny just before the zero hour — A quick victory 
— German revenge — Making oneself at home in "strafed" 
territory. 

Officers and men of the First Division had their 
part fully planned in their own minds. General 
Foch would make a great counter-attack. They 
would be jumped off the train and rushed Into a 
charge. This was the dramatic thing, although not 
the thing that suited the plan of the moment. With 
the second German offensive now holding the High 
Command's attention to the Ypres salient, we were 
to continue to parry blows before we struck a blow in 
return. 

The First was assigned to a billeting area be- 
tween Paris and the battle front, where it became a 
unit ready for action as a part of a strategic reserve. 
It might be certain that In such a critical period It 
would not have to wait long before being employed. 
Never did guests receive a more significant welcome 
from their hosts than our men in the pleasant coun- 

211 



212 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

c'ryside of the Oise. It was not a welcome of arches 
and flag-waving or ceremony of any kind, but a per- 
sonal one from, men and women who saw the Ameri- 
cans for the first time and saw them as a wall of 
trained youth between the ruin of homes and the fate 
of the refugees who had been passing on the 
roads. 

Meanwhile, the shining hours were to be Improved 
by a " brushing up " process, as General Pershing 
called It. Open warfare having returned to the 
Western front, trench kinks were to be taken out 
of the men's minds and legs by drill which was sug- 
gestive of the part now expected of them. Each 
young lieutenant realized afresh the responsibility for 
taking a platoon Into action. Brigade and regimen- 
tal commanders were busy with Innumerable details 
when not summoned to conferences by superiors. 
They had no time to discuss the tapestries on the 
walls of the chateaux which they occupied or to take 
walks In the grounds. Commanders had great luck In 
chateaux on this occasion. Spacious dining-rooms 
became regimental mess rooms where officers ate 
simple fare In a hurry. 

When I sought a colonel I was conducted along 
a hall with high ceilings and statues and through 
the great salon to the study of the owner, where 
the colonel was dictating orders to a field clerk. 
Everyw^here, throughout this war, billiard tables in 
chateaux have served the same practical purpose 
for spreading out maps. We followed the custom. 
Every table In our area was In use. After the war 
chateau billiard tables should bear brass placques 
of this kind: " Upon this table General X. planned 



OUR FIRST OFFENSIVE 213 

the assault on ; " or " Here General H, planned 

his artillery barrages for the battle of ." 

Just by way of making sure that the commissioned 
personnel should not be idle or lapse into mental 
ruts, that indefatigable lieutenant-colonel of the di- 
vision staff, who had been doing this sort of thing 
v/ith irrepressible enthusiasm since the First arrived 
in France, *' emitted " another training " problem." 
This time infantry and artillery were to be repre- 
sented in theory and the officers were to go through 
all the business of retaking some of the peaceful 
countryside from an imaginary enemy. General 
Pershing stood in the village square with General 
Bullard and a French general and staff officers to 
watch the staff work in meeting the imaginary emer- 
gencies which reports brought from that imaginary 
front. 

The men liked this kind of a problem for a change. 
It gave them a day to sit about their billets and 
lounge about the streets. They needed rest to build 
up tissue as reserve for any forthcoming demand on 
their strength. That night the officers were asked to 
write out any suggestions they might have which 
might be of service, as the result of their experi- 
ence, and the next morning all the field officers of 
the division were gathered in a circle back of the 
chateau which General Bullard occupied, in order 
that General Pershing might say a few words to 
them. He made it clear what was expected of that 
division as the first American division to enter an 
active battle sector in Europe; the importance of 
the determination that " carries through," of hold- 
ing the confidence of their men and of meeting 



214 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

situations which no training or orders could antici- 
pate. 

It was a good, straight soldier talk, a reminder of 
the essential, immemorial principles of the offensive 
spirit in war, the spirit which he had taught from 
the first. Anyone looking into the faces of the offi- 
cers, a type of all the officers of our divisions to 
serve in France, had no doubt of how the First and 
all of our other divisions would fight. They and the 
men in the billets were taut of nerve, keyed up for 
any test. 

General Pershing might be thinking of many di- 
visions, but General Bullard naturally was thinking 
of only one, his own, which he had fathered through 
the Toul sector. He came from Georgia and re- 
tained his Southern accent, a slim, wiry man whose 
bright eyes twinkled when he made an epigram or 
flashed when he remarked, " If you are determined 
to die in your tracks you will not die, but the other 
fellow will if you know how to fight." He laid great 
stress on both factors. He was determined that the 
First should be as steeled to the one as it was well 
trained in the other. The news that came from 
the British front was not cheering. Sir Douglas 
Haig had just issued his appeal to his men to die in 
their tracks before Bethune; and happily, in keeping 
with British tradition, the appeal was answered in 
the deed, according to General Bullard's principles, 
even as his own men were to answer it when the time 
came. 

The order for the First to move came on April 
17th, and the way that we were to carry it out was of 
itself a test of whether or not we were ready for 



OUR FIRST OFFENSIVE 215 

action in the sense that General Foch meant; for he 
does not allow divisions any time to learn lessons 
of war en route to the front when he makes one of 
his combinations. An American division is not only 
twenty-seven thousand human beings with estab- 
lished standards of human locomotion and food con- 
sumption; it is guns and wagons and horses and 
motor trucks, with many units of men and trans- 
port, each complete in itself which must be up on 
time. 

For such business typists are required at division 
headquarters. Every unit must have its written 
order, specifically stating the hour when it is to move, 
the route or routes it is to take and its destination, 
where accommodations must be ready. You may 
take a map and with marching tables work out the 
movement in theory; but if the division is not trained 
the result will be distraction for the staff and worse 
for the troops when night comes. The First did 
not know where it was going into the line or when ; 
only that it was to move forward to a given destina- 
tion. 

The orchard where a battery of guns had been 
parked yesterday was empty now. The infantry- 
men had put on their packs, fallen in and marched 
away, leaving the villages to the inhabitants; motor 
trucks had appeared in front of the chateaux for the 
officers' baggage; the maps on the billiard tables 
were packed; and generals and colonels had gone in 
their cars, leaving silent the halls which had re- 
sounded with urgent steps. Twenty-seven thousand 
men had departed with an automatic time-table fa- 
cility, leaving no litter behind. Another division 



2i6 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

might march in to take their place, with the same 
absence of confusion. 

As the First approached the battle area, it kept 
to the winding roads between the great main roads, 
which were thus left free for the traffic that sup- 
ported the troops at the front, or for sudden emer- 
gencies. Unit commanders of troops and transport 
had maps of their routes, and military police at the 
cross roads controlled traffic and were supposed to 
give further directions. The procession of men, 
guns, horses and motors spent the night in the vil- 
lages assigned quite as a traveler settles in an hotel 
where his room is ordered in advance; and the next 
day all were on the move again for another stage of 
the journey, which brought us to the points where 
we should learn what the French army commander 
was to do with us. An unseasonable snowstorm laid 
a white blanket on the fields and blew wet and chill 
in the men's faces; but there was no straggling. 

You thought of the First as sorrte great, single 
organism, many-footed, many-wheeled, with all parts 
articulated. AH was methodically, professionally, 
done to the lay eye with officers, however, taking 
notes on mistakes when certain requisites were not 
on hand or there were misunderstandings due to the 
difficulties of liaison in introducing an American di- 
vision into an active French army dependent upon 
French supplies. With the exception of wine, our 
.aen were receiving the regular French rations. 
This was a factor of importance in staff councils, 
considering that an army marches on its stomach 
and stomachs have not yet been internationalized — 
an improvement which may come with the League of 



OUR FIRST OFFENSIVE 217 

Nations. The French gave us too much bread and 
too few vegetables. We wanted more sweets and 
fats and coffee to the American taste in place of the 
French " pinard." We lacked French expertness in 
cooking the French canned " Willy " from Argentine 
which we called " monkey meat." General Pershing 
saw to it that our quartermasters supplemented the 
French ration with articles which were necessary for 
keeping an American fighting man in trim. 

French officers came and went from our new di- 
vision headquarters as we rested in sound of the 
guns and waited on orders. When the orders came, 
the First had the sense of relaxation and disappoint- 
ment of the man who after waiting in a dentist's 
reception room to have a tooth out is told to come 
to-morrow. The First was not going into a counter- 
attack. It was not to make a charge, leaving half of 
its numbers on the field in a few hours' swift action. 
It was going into an active sector opposite Mont- 
didier at the nose of the German salient, which, 
however, was to be change enough from Toul to hold 
its impatience from any mutinous outbreak until we 
took Cantigny. 

Here, as elsewhere along the new battle front, 
the German beast had come to a stop, growling, in 
face of resolute French resistance. Neither side had 
undertaken to dig any regular line of trenches. We 
were in virgin battle ground, in notable contrast to 
the seamed and threshed fields jf the Somme and 
Verdun. Black circles, from shell-bursts, spattered 
the fields of young wheat. Villages beyond the bil- 
leting area, in the active zone, with house doors open 
and no one inside had a more deserted aspect than 



2i8 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

if they were in ruins; for you had an idea that chil- 
dren ought to be playing in the streets and their 
mothers going about the household work, until a 
burst of shell fire made you comprehend why all the 
inhabitants had fled. 

The guns had a lot to do yet before they dupli- 
cated the swath of destruction of the old line. It 
takes an amazing number of shells just to level one 
church. That chateau with a single breach in its 
walls from a six-inch would have to come down with 
time as the Germans warmed to their work, and 
the adjacent homes would be laid in heaps mixed 
with splinters of the household furniture, if the new 
line were established long enough. 

Were we beginning the war over again in a fresh 
theater or was the theater to keep moving? The 
very instinct of the armies seemed to express the 
thought that it would keep moving. Stalling, in 
rhe old sense, had ceased for the time being on the 
Western front. Attack would meet attack, offensive 
would answer offensive, until the decision came. 
Something that confirmed the idea was in the atti- 
tude of the men of our army. Once they were pre- 
pared for action they would not be content with 
nibbling trench raids and limited objectives. 

The Germans were scattering their shell fire as 
if they had not yet made up their minds what should 
be their targets. *' Dead Man's Curve " or " Death 
Valley " had not yet come into the lexicon of local 
references as places where you must be consistently 
on guard. The positions of the French batteries re- 
flected the action of a gathering force which in open 
maneuver had checked the German wave. 



OUR FIRST OFFENSIVE 219 

" We may move to-morrow," had evidently been 
the prompting thought in the gunners' minds, in- 
stead of elaborately digging in to settle down to 
permanent positions. Three batteries in echelon 
along a valley between a road and forest had an 
aspect of defiance. If the German guns concentrated 
on these batteries, their gunners had some shelter 
in the edge of the woods, where they would remain 
until the storm passed unless the German infantry 
were attacking, when they would immediately meet 
storm with storm. There was an aspect of mobihty, 
of elasticity, of readiness for change, as If armies 
which had been tied down to stationary warfare 
for three years did not want to return to their 
shackles. 

The front consisted only of scattered men In the 
rifle pits which they had dug. Thus, relief for the 
Infantry as well as for the artillery was a more tick- 
lish matter than in a settled sector; and this made 
our French mentors as solicitously attentive as they 
had been the first time we went into the trenches. 
Our regimental and battalion commanders first 
scouted the ground which we were to occupy. Then 
battalion and battery and company commanders 
joined their French " opposites " at the front and 
familiarized themselves with all the details of their 
future responsibilities. One night two guns of the 
American battery moved out and took the place of 
two guns of a French battery, which made the bat- 
tery half American. On the morning of the third 
day, the batteries were all American. In the same 
way, platoon commanders crawled out to the rifle 
pits before they led their platoons Into position. On 



220 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the morning of the third day the front line was all 
American. " Taking over " had been accomplished 
without the Germans being any the wiser, if increase 
of fire on their part was to be taken as an indication. 
Again the French instructors said pleasant words. 
There could be only one more lesson, that of an 
attack in force, before the First must be declared a 
graduate pupil. 

Our hospital reports were sufficient proof that we 
had a stiffer business in hand than the Toul sector. 
The Montdidier salient must be active from the very 
fact that it was not an established line and that 
neither side had any intention that it should become 
one. The guns of both sides were prodigal of fire. 
Villages in the combat zone were gradually tumbling 
down over the cellars that became the refuge of all 
concerned. A good deal of digging was required in 
order to have a minimum of exposure ; but the front 
still remained " open " in the sense that we attempted 
no trench lines for enemy aviators to photograph 
for the information of enemy artillery. It was a 
crafty business of hide-and-seek and searching, har- 
assing fire, thanks to our restless initiative. 

The outpost in a rifle pit so constructed, or a 
shell crater so transformed, as to protect him pretty 
well from anything but a direct hit by a shell, had to 
take the weather and events as they came while he 
faced the German army with mobile infantry sup- 
ports at his back. On chill, rainy nights of spring 
he must get what protection he could from his shelter 
half which seems as sumptuous as a mansard roof by 
comparison when you lack a shelter half. 

It was easy for him to lead a pious life, but not 



OUR FIRST OFFENSIVE 221 

a comfortable one or one free from solicitude and 
suspicion. If he were of an imaginary or a pessi- 
mistic nature he had food for reflection. He might 
play safe and sit tight and not attract the enemy's 
attention; but that is not the way to gain confidence 
in yourself and mastery over the enemy, and it was 
not the way of our soldiers, whether they were 
armed with rifles or with machine guns. They were 
looking for something to shoot at, and shot at it 
on all occasions with an accuracy which the German 
Staff might note for future reference. We made 
raids and repulsed raids and went through all the 
grinding, wearing arid costly routine under new con- 
ditions, until the chance came for the First to " go 
J over the top " in earnest. 

The original plan was for a more extensive attack 
than actually took place. With the First in the 
center and a fresh French division on either flank, 
we were to drive ahead for two days to gain the 
heights of Montdidier and relieve the pressure on 
the British. Orders were issued and preparations 
were begun to be ready for this offensive on the 
25th of May. Having no regular trenches in the 
front line, jumping-off trenches must be made. Our 
men dug a trench two miles long and three feet deep 
in one night and another on the second night, which 
were so designed that the enemy would mistake both 
as being for defensive purposes. All this labor was 
for nothing. Soldiers are used to such disappoint- 
ments, when a shifting military situation forces one 
of those changes of mind which are inevitable when 
the enemy has the initiative and you have to act upon 
your information about his plans. 



222 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

But the High Command allowed us a consolation 
offensive for the 28th of May, which was to be our 
very own. We were to take the town of Cantigny, 
which was almost as gratifying a prospect as that of 
taking Mont Sec in the Toul sector. Cantigny sat 
on a hill, which is an unusual characteristic for a 
French town. Infantrymen in our riHe pits were 
almost as sick of the sight of it as the whole division 
had been of Mont Sec. In fact, the First was weary 
of having the enemy look down on it scornfully from 
any high ground. 

Our own party ! A real, sure enough party ! 
What conferences at Headquarters! What a zest 
in all the discussions ! How long should we make 
the artillery preparation? What should be its char- 
acter? The word liaison, which took the place of co- 
ordination in our army lexicon in France, presided 
over the councils. The detailed orders for our first 
little offensive would make a good-sized volume. 
We were in the mood of a young lawyer trying his 
first case; of a young author reading the proof of 
his first book; a young engineer building his first 
bridge. We determined that we would think of 
everything and that we would make everything very 
clear in the instructions. Our artillery, which was 
sufficiently popular with the infantry to be cheered 
by the " doughboys " as the guns passed, meant to 
retain its high reputation by the support it gave the 
men who went " over the top." It would bear down 
all opposition with its blows; or, if it did not, the 
French tanks were to assist in looking after machine- 
gun nests. 

Barrages were charted and the firing programme 



OUR FIRST OFFENSIVE 223 

so specifically arranged that no gunner could go 
wrong and no battalion or company or platoon com- 
mander could fail to know what he should expect 
from the guns. The system of runners and signals 
was worked out with infinite care, in order that the 
command might be in touch with all the units. We 
imagined ourselves in the place of the Germans 
in order to anticipate the character of the Ger- 
man response, and visualized all sorts of contin- 
gencies. 

Reconnaissances, which must be made in order that 
those who were responsible for the plans should be 
perfectly familiar with the terrain, were difficult. 
The German had the whole area of operation within 
the range of many batteries. He pounded it every 
night by way of showing us that we were not alone 
in our desire to keep the sector active. Staff officers 
who went out to get first-hand knowledge of the 
ground, dodged from crater to crater between shell- 
bursts with a keen appreciation of what life was like 
at the front. 

The men who went over the top were to carry 
two hundred and twenty rounds of rifle ammunition, 
two hand grenades and one rifle grenade, two can- 
teens filled with water, one shelter half, four sand 
bags, one flare and one shovel or one pick, and they 
were to wear their blouses and to leave their blankets 
behind. They must have enough food and water 
to remain for two days in their newly-won positions; 
for there could be no thought that we should not 
gain our objective. If we did not, the 28th Infantry, 
which was to have the honor of making the attack 
because it was fresh and had its turn to go into the 



224 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

line, could never come back with any grace to face 
the other regiments which envied the 28th 
its opportunity. Particularly it would not have 
wanted to face the i8th, which did much drudgery 
and valuable service in its support. 

Once more the men of the First had to dig jump- 
ing-off trenches; and the shell craters where the 
trenches ran across the fields are sufficient evidence 
of the character of that task in the darkness before 
the morning of the attack. But the trenches had to 
be dug and there was nothing to do but to keep on 
the job until they were dug in an hour's spirited 
effort. Those who labored were in a mood befitting 
the occasion. When a soldier was knocked over by 
a shell, as he viewed the crater by the light of another 
burst, after he was back on his feet he remarked: 
" Thanks for your help; but don't dig so broad and 
keep on the line ! " 

A shell that burst in a dump of flares and grenades 
in the St. Eloi Wood blew up the lot. Here was one 
of those emergencies which could not be foreseen. 
Shell fire or no shell fire, the stock must be replaced, 
and those whose business it was to look after the 
matter kept hustling until it was. 

As the third German offensive had started that 
day, May 27th, on the line from north of Soissons to 
west of Rheims, and the Germans were eager to 
know General Foch's plans, they increased the activ- 
ity in the neighborhood of Cantigny by three raids. 
One penetrated our line and took a prisoner. This 
would never do. The prisoner might reveal our 
plans for the morning. We set out to recover him 
and had an affair with his captors in a wheat field 



OUR FIRST OFFENSIVE 225 

that won him back. By this time he must have been 
feeling very self-important. 

Meanwhile, the 26th Infantry, having repulsed 
a raid on our right, responded by a counter-raid 
which took prisoners, which is further evidence 
that the First was very wide awake in front of 
Cantigny on the night of May 27th. Incidentally, 
I should like to make it clear that I saw nothing of 
the action of the next day and depend upon reports 
and upon observation of the ground after the attack. 

The lieutenants who were to go over the top 
hardly needed to carry any maps in order to know 
the programme assigned to their platoons. The de- 
tails were burned in their brains. Silent as shadows 
in the darkness, the men moved out to their posi- 
tions. All the Stokes motars and 37 mm. guns of 
the 1 6th Infantry and a half company of engineers 
and two other machine-gun companies of the 2nd 
Machine-gun Battalion were to assist the 28th. 

For days 'before the attack the heavy guns had 
avoided drawing attention to it by shelling Cantigny. 
At 4 : 45 on the morning of the attack the artillery 
began an adjustment fire in which each battery had 
a fifteen-minute interval; and at 5:45 all the guns 
began the real preparation. Now the heavies gave 
Cantigny all they could send and the little town was 
revealed to the eye of the waiting infantry in lurid 
flashes. The crashes and the screams and the bursts 
at the end of the screams in their unorchestrated, 
monstrous roar were like hundreds of other artillery 
preparations while the minutes ticked oft to zero 
hour, and the enemy, aroused now to the fact that 
an attack was coming, began to respond. 



226 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

At 6:45 in the early dawn of May 28th, as has 
happened many times before, the line of figures 
started up from the earth and began their advance. 
The formations were the same as those of the prac- 
tice maneuvers, and the movement was equally pre- 
cise as it kept to the time-table of the barrage. Each 
unit was doing its part, the tanks as they nosed their 
way forward doing theirs. Our shelling of the lower 
end of the town suddenly ceased; and then our men 
were seen entering the town exactly on time. Head- 
quarters waited on reports, and they came of prison- 
ers taken, of the further progress of units- — all ac- 
cording to the charts. We had passed through the 
town; we were mopping it up; and we had reached 
our objective in front of the town. Our losses to 
that point were less than a hundred men, with three 
hundred and fifty prisoners. A small offensive as 
offensives go, but our own, and our first. 

Going over the top in a frontal attack had been al- 
most-tame, it was so like practice exercises. The 
fact that our practice exercises had been so sys- 
tematically applied, that, indeed, we had done every- 
thing in the book, accounted for the perfect success 
of Cantigny. There was a glad, proud light in the 
eyes of our wounded. They had been hit in a " real 
party." Nobody could deny that they were graduate 
soldiers now. But there was to be the reaction which 
always comes with limited objectives when you do 
not advance far enough to draw the enemy's fangs — 
his guns. Upon the roads along which men must 
pass to bring up supplies, upon every point where 
men must work or men or wagons pass, upon the 
command posts, he turns the wrath of his resent- 



OUR FIRST OFFENSIVE 227 

ment over the loss of men and ground, and In his 
rage concentrates most wickedly, most persistently 
and powerfully upon the infantry which is trying to 
organize the new frontal positions. 

The German artillery would show this upstart 
American division its mistake In thinking that it 
could hold what it had gained. Eight-inch shells 
were the favorites in the bombardment of our men, 
who now had Cantigny at their backs as they dug in, 
while showers of shrapnel and gas added to the 
variety of that merciless pounding that kept up for 
three days. We suffered serious casualties, now; 
but we did not go back, and we took revenge for our 
casualties in grim use of rifle and machine gun which, 
with the aid of prompt barrages, repulsed all counter- 
attacks, until the Germans were convinced of the 
futility of further efforts. 

Later, when I did the usual thing of rising at 
three In the morning In order to go over our positions 
at Cantigny, the sector had become settled In Its 
habits though still active. Part of the walls of the 
chateau which had had a single hit when I first saw 
it were still standing; all the surrounding village 
was in ruins almost as complete as if it had been in 
the Ypres salient. 

From the front line I watched the early morning 
"strafe" of the German guns; the selected points 
of " hate," here and there along the front receiving 
a quarter of an hour's attention, while the crushed 
remains of Cantigny were being subjected to addi- 
tional pulverization. We held the line, but with cun- 
ning men hidden In the earth. You hardly knew 
of their presence unless you stumbled on them. 



228 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

After the German gunners went to breakfast you 
might slip into the Company P. C. in Cantigny. The 
captain in command there was perfectly snug, thank 
you. Guests were welcome if they did not stand 
about the doorway to draw fire. Let them come 
below and have a drink of cider from the big casks 
which were in the safest cellar in town. 

No, you might not go forward into the eastern 
edge of the town. That was a positive invitation 
to German batteries to open up. The captain knew 
his positions and knew his business, and he did not 
want any firing in that neighborhood at the time. 
Later, you might learn that three individuals were 
important enough to be shelled if they tried to walk 
along the road back to Villers Tournelle, where a 
major who had helped to take Cantigny had coffee 
and corned beef hash ready for breakfast. Every- 
body you met at the front had a certain air of pro- 
prietorship in the sector; and back at headquarters 
the thoroughbred veteran chief of staff and all the 
other officers of that much-schooled First received 
you with their habitual attitude, which seemed to say, 
" Any suggestions or criticisms? We are always lis- 
tening — but, understand, please, we are the First 
Division." 



XVIII 

A CALL FROM THE MARNE 

A river that for the second time held the world's attention — The 
) Germans third offensive — A smash through for ten miles the 
( first day — Effect on Allied morale — Americans called on to 
block the road to Paris — The Third Division of regulars were 
readj' — The stream of refugees — The incomparable French 
spirit — The veteran Second Division arrives — An endless train 
of motor lorries crowded with doughboys — The " joy-ride " of 
war — The night that " Les Americains " meant much to France. 

Probably I received more comfort in the last four 
days of May from an old peasant a hundred miles 
back of the lines than from anything I heard at 
Headquarters. He came out of his house to watch 
an American chauffeur put on a tire and he was a 
sage citizen of an old country. 

" I hear they are going to have another battle on 
the Marne," he said. " We'll stop the barbarians 
there. La, la ! We always stop them there. It 
does not take you long to put on a tire, does it? 
You travel fast, but you eat lots of dust. La, la ! " 

The winding kindly Marne, anything but a river 
of Mars in its domesticated course through rich 
fields tilled to the water's edge, was again holding 
the world's thought in connection with a great mili- 
tary decision. On the morning of the 28th 
our First Division had taken Cantigny, and on 
the previous morning the Germans had begun their 
third or Aisne offensive. We Allies had been plan- 

229 



230 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

ning not to be surprised again; but facing the Ger- 
mans were tired French troops with a few reserves, 
and also a tired British corps which had been 
brought from the British front to a quiet sector to 
rest. 

After a prehminary bombardment of unprece- 
dented volume, which saturated battery positions 
and vital points with gas to a depth of six miles 
and more, the Germans broke through all the de- 
fenses of this old, powerfully intrenched line for a 
depth of as much as ten miles in a single day. It 
is said that Ludendorff meant this attack as prelim- 
inary to one elsewhere; but when he found how 
slight was the resistance which it developed he com- 
mitted himself to pressing his advantage. 

Even Americans could not get much consolation 
out of our little offensive at Cantigny in this critical 
period. While our men of the First were digging in 
to hold the single village which we had taken, the 
Germans were taking villages by the score. With 
their infiltrating machine-gun units, using the same 
tactics as in Picardy in March but improved by ex- 
perience, they seemed to be moving according to a 
schedule which was reflected on a battle line drawn 
further south on the maps at Headquarters by every 
bulletin. Apparently, they were having a procession 
of victory. Their communiques were purposely and 
dramatically brief in their announcement of immense 
gains in ground, prisoners and material. 

The German people were thus informed that their 
staff, as usual, was winning according to plans. Well 
might the German armies in their swift progress find 
fresh strength and fervor in their confidence that the 



A CALL FROM THE MARNE 231 

break was near. They crossed the Vesle; they took 
Fere-en-TardenoIs; they crossed the Ourcq; they ap- 
proached the Marne and Chateau-Thierry; they had 
Soissons and were pressing forward on the plateau 
beyond Soissons towards Paris. 

When would this drive be stopped? Where were 
our reserves? After four years of fighting when all 
the armies of Europe were war-weary, the soldiers 
of all were peculiarly susceptible to the effect of such 
an operation repeating the success of that of March. 
A supreme article of faith of all generalship is to 
use the revival of the spirits of your tired men in a 
moment of victory to impose your will upon any 
enemy who is accordingly depressed. 

How far was this applying to the results in the 
region from the Marne to the Aisne during the last 
days of May? Where we had held our line for four 
years, the enemy had broken through our defenses 
and the defenders were in flight. How easy to say, 
" We ought to stop them at the Vesle ! " or, " We 
shall hold them on the heights of the Ourcq! " when 
you stood before a map at Headquarters without 
visualizing the situation in the field. 

A great enemy concentration, successful in its first 
assault beyond expectation, was succeeded as It 
became tired by fresh divisions of Germans, and 
they, as they became tired, by others drawn from the 
immense reserve held ready for such an operation. 
We must hurry our reserve units from different 
points of the semicircle. The German reserves 
were driven straight down the half-diameter. They 
had a land cleared of population for their move- 
ment. We were hampered and depressed by the 



232 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

refugees who had to fly before the enemy from home 
in the late spring season, when the wheat and the 
grass were near the harvesting period and the 
gardens beginning to yield produce. Confusion in 
communications and information confounded the 
plans for dispositions in defense. 

You might find grains of comfort where you could, 
but there were the bulletins. You might talk opti- 
mistically and set your jaw, but the words sounded 
hollow. The honors seemed for the present with 
German strategy and tactics. It took a man with a 
big, strong vision or the faith of the old peasant not 
to feel the moral effect of the swift progress of the 
German army. 

America might be sending over five hundred thou- 
sand troops in June; but of what use were these 
partly trained men if they were too late? It was 
trained men who were needed on the Marne and on 
the road to Paris. At the time, there were no Ameri- 
can forces between Cantigny and the Toul sector. 
The only Americans visible behind the new battle 
area were officers who passed along the roads in 
automobiles, going and coming on various errands. 
They miglit be of official importance, but they were 
of no combat significance. And the Allies were ask- 
ing if v.e could do anything in this crisis. Our po- 
tentiality had become the decisive force in their 
reckoning. We were the real strategic reserve of 
the Allied cause. 

After the four pioneer divisions, the Third (4th, 
7th, 30th and 38th regiments), commanded by 
Major General Joseph Dickman, was the most ad- 
vanced In training. Although it had not yet received 



A CALL FROM THE MARNE 233 

its own artillery it was about to go into a quiet 
sector under the support of French artillery. It 
looked forward, with the same intense curiosity of 
other divisions, to its first experience in dugouts and 
under shell fire in the actual presence of the enemy. 
On the 29th came a change of orders which sent fire 
along the veins of every man in the division. It was 
to have a short cut to learning. The decision having 
been made to send it to the Marne, the next thing 
was the means of taking It to Its destination. Our 
Idea at home that France Is a small garden of a 
country Is correct in comparison with our own; but 
when you have to move divisions from one part to 
another, the distances are Impressive. 

For motion-picture purposes. Instantly the order 
came every soldier of the Third ought to have 
rushed out of his billets on to the road. In that 
event, they would have had a four- or five-day march 
in prospect. The French proposed to bring them 
to the Marne quicker than that by trains, though 
the provision of trains was a problem, too. When 
I saw the first detachments marching away from their 
billets for entraining at village stations, the sight 
of their sturdy ranks was very convincing. They 
might have had no artillery, but they had rifles and 
they knew how to shoot. Give them a line to hold 
and any German force would soon realize that it 
had met an obstacle. 

The motorized machine-gun battalion did not 
have to wait on trains. It had already gone, envied 
of all the units of the division. Of all the knights 
and soldiers and flying columns which have hastened 
along the roads of France In answer to a call from 



234 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the ^^ar^c, none ever made a more dramatic move- 
ment than this battalion, with the eyes of the men 
shininji; at the prospect of being in the " big party." 
They would not have to wait on ceremony. Their 
cars could go right up to the firing zone. And ma- 
chine gunners were always needed. The battalion 
was certain of seeing action. 

"Our headquarters will be at Conde!" division 
headquarters said. Condc-en-Bric was just south of 
the bend in the Marne at Dormans. 

The next day, bounci toward the Marne, the lirst 
sign of tiie battle which 1 saw along the road some 
seventy miles south of the Marne was the vanguard 
of refugees. I had only a glimpse of them from the 
swiftly passing car, but it was a glimpse full of sug- 
gestion and one that will never fade from memory. 
A buxom young woman was sitting in a big hay 
wagon with seven or eight children of ages from four 
to eight years, I should say, around her, while a 
small boy of eleven or twelve was proudly driving 
the horses. She must have been either a school mis- 
tress or a good Samaritan who had gathered these 
young ones, secured a wagon and made an early start 
for their sake. They w^ere smiling in their iirst 
great adventure away from home, probably because 
she herself was smiling. 

Other refugees who had wagons now came on in 
a procession — the same that we have known through 
many descriptions. They had traveled day and 
night, keeping to the main road, as the farther to 
the rear they were, the less they would interfere with 
army traffic. Now they seemed safe far from the 
sound of guns and the scenes of rearguard resist- 



A CALL FROM THE MARNi: 235 

ancc. 'I'hcy stopped under the shade of the trees 
and rested, while their horses grazed. 'I'hose who 
had cows milked them, and this meant food for the 
young children. 

When wc arc advancing the war is always being 
won and when we arc retreating the war is 
always being lost at the ctappes. 'I'hus, rumors, 
which always make bad news, were |)lentiful at 
Sezanne. 

" You will not reach Conde," said an officer at 
Sezanne. " The Germans arc already there. J'hey 
are on their way to I^aris. It's terrible for I'Vance 
now, but it will be all right for France in the future. 
You cannot kill France." 

His conclusion was correct, if his premises were 
not. By the token of the smiling children in tfie hay 
wagon and of all the refugees, in tenacity and im- 
mutability of race you could not kill France. Let 
con(juerors come and overrun J'rance and settle in 
France, and, in a generation or two, they would take 
on the character of the French, T think, from the 
very fact that their roots drew nourishment from the 
soil of France. 

" There was an old peasant down the road," I told 
the officer, " and he said " 

The officer was too truly French not to respond 
to that. The air of confusion due to the reports of 
broken regiments, the sight of the passing refugees 
and the pressure of the forces falling back on new 
bases, suddenly cleared for him. lie caught the old 
peasant's perspective. 

"We'll stop them on the Marne! We always 
do 1 " he said; and he had a new heart for his prob- 



236 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

lems in a town which had suddenly become near 
enough to the front to assume importance. 

The road from Sezanne to Montmirail, which pre- 
viously had had little concern with military trans- 
port, had other signs than refugees — among them 
some batteries of guns in rest — which indicated that 
the settled conditions of nearly four years back of 
the old front line had been stirred by orders which 
looked towards threatening possibilities. With the 
railroad from Chateau-Thierry to Epernay out of 
commission, other railroads must care for suddenly 
increased traffic. Motor trucks which had had their 
station far back of the present battle line must have 
new bases. Aeroplanes, which had flown from aero- 
dromes now in German hands, had come to rest in 
level fields which would be the site of future aero- 
dromes. 

Montmirail, which had been a quiet town en route 
from Paris to Chalons and to Vitry-le-Franqois, was 
feeling the hot breath of war for the first time since 
September, 19 14. Ambulances arriving from the 
front crowded the hospitals with wounded, for the 
Germans were not far away across the hilly, wooded 
country which stretched up to the narrow valley of 
the Marne. An officer of the Third, who was at 
a French army headquarters, said that the Third's 
headquarters were at Conde and its motor machine- 
gun battalion had gone to Chateau-Thierry. On the 
way to Conde, French army transport going and 
coming had the road to themselves. There seemed 
an end of the refugees. Those left north of the 
Marne could not cross now; those to the south, 
with a few scattered exceptions, were already away. 



A CALL FROM THE MARNE 237 

The villages were deserted. There would be no 
lack of room for billets that night. All the country- 
side was quiet, and the sound of the guns forward 
indicated a small volume of fire. A squadron of 
cavalry with saddles on and riders lounging were 
indicative of readiness for one kind of emer- 
gency. 

The only sign of Americans, except billeting of- 
ficers waiting for their guests in the villages, was a 
company at a railroad station where it had just been 
detrained and awaited orders to march. I found 
General Dickman with his staff at Conde. He had 
an immense empty chateau at his disposal, besides 
his automobile and maps, but no food or baggage. 
As fast as detachments of his division arrived they 
were put at the disposition of the French. 

The Germans were across the Marne, but not in 
great force, and the French High Command, which 
knew its American soldiers now, could trust to Amer- 
ican riflemen and the French 75's playing on the 
bridges to do the work required. It hardly seemed 
likely that the enemy would deepen his salient across 
the river by pushing farther south. Surely he would 
broaden it by swinging towards Paris, along the 
river. Any crucial fighting that was to ensue would 
take place in that direction. 

On May 29th, the Second, a trench-tried division 
with its experienced artillery, had been under orders 
to march from the Chaumont-en-Vexin area, where it 
was billeted, to the Beauvais area. The movement 
was to begin at six on the morning of May 31st. 
This order, given on the third day of the Germans' 
Marne drive, suggests that thus far the French High 



238 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

Command did not think the situation serious enough 
to require the services of the Second. 

At five o'clock on the evening of the 30th, a 
French officer appeared with an order that the in- 
fantry of the division would start for Meaux in 
trucks at five o'clock the next morning. At midnight 
another order came saying that the remainder of the 
division would be prepared to move by rail at five- 
thirty. This change of plan was hardly conducive 
to sleep on the part of officers on the night of May 
30th-3ist. New detailed orders must be issued and 
forwarded by courier to all units. As the infantry 
would be separated from their kitchens for two days, 
a supply of rations had to be issued. Some units had 
to march six miles to their entraining points. A mul- 
titude of small problems must be worked out during 
the night to prevent any hitches; but all were sur- 
mounted, and the next morning, while the rest of the 
division waited for trains, the infantry climbed into 
motor trucks and the long procession started across 
country. 

There is no sight more impressive behind the 
lines In a crisis than such a movement. A continuous 
roar stretches along the road, rising in stentorian 
crescendo as one truck after another looms out of 
the dust and forges past, all keeping their intervals, 
all going at the same speed. It is the roar that takes 
the place of the clatter of cavalry and the double 
quick of the infantry, which were sent in the old days 
to stiffen your breaking line or to add weight against 
the enemy's line that was breaking. 

The cumulative effect of such a seemingly endless 
column, with Its passing groups of soldier faces, is 



A CALL FROM THE MARNE 239 

extraordinary. It has the fascination of trained 
man-power in rapid motion; it appeals to the imag- 
ination as the swift and dramatic transfer of a 
strilcing force. The men like it — this " joy-ride " of 
war. They have something of the feeling for the 
truck that the mounted infantryman has for his 
horse. When they debuss to go into battle, some- 
thing of the impulse of the motor column's move- 
ment is imparted to their spirits. Given roads 
enough and trucks and gasoline enough, and a gen- 
eral may move corps about atwill to suit his plans. 
He may fool the enemy aviators by a procession of 
trucks taking troops one way by day and counter- 
marching them a hundred miles back to their start- 
ing-point under the cover of darkness. 

From their trucks the infantry of the Second, thir- 
teen thousand men in all, saluted the villages and the 
countryside as they ran past, eating enough dust en 
route, as one of them said, to cake his stomach into 
a mud pie. They had read the communiques. They 
knew that all this gasoline and transportation were 
not being expended upon them in order that they 
make the acquaintance of other families of the great 
trench rat tribe in some quiet sector. 

The only orders which they had was that a French 
officer at the Town Hall would tell them where to go 
when they arrived at Meaux; but although the officer 
was there, the instructions were not. During the 
time required to send infantry from Chaumont-en- 
Vexin to Meaux, all kinds of changes may take place 
on the battle line. Where a division was needed in 
the morning it may not be needed in the afternoon; 
or it may be needed in quite a different place than it 



240 AMERICA IX FRANXE 

was in the morning. At all events, the Second was 
in striking distance of the battle line; it was strategic 
reserve subject to call. 

Somewhere in the upper world which they call the 
High Command, decision waited upon developments; 
and the Second was ordered to go into billets north- 
east of Meaux. They could not be allowed to re- 
main sitting in valuable motor trucks for any length 
of time. The first detachments to arrive had de- 
bussed and shaken oft the dust, and the staft was 
disposing them in billets, when an order came for the 
division to take up a position between Gandelu and 
Martigny where another attack was expected. All 
the men who had arrived were once more started on 
their way. Later, at midnight, when the last of the 
trucks was in, a French officer appeared with an army 
order saying that the division would concentrate at 
Montreuil-aux-Lions by a forced march. There was 
no time for any nice arrangements of road schedules. 
Somebody had to take the map and lay out routes 
and hurry instructions by runner to all the units. 
wherever they were. 

The confusion at the rear was at its height, and 
the time was night after the Germans had made 
further gains. Rumors grow in the night and hasten 
the steps of those in retreat. The marching columns 
in the darkness, intensified by the heavy shade of 
the trees, must make their way past ambulances and 
motor trucks that shot by in ruthless possession of 
the road, and among refugees and their carts and 
batteries and broken elements of troops and peri- 
patetic cavalry. Out of the darkness as our troops 
were identified, came cries of " Les Americains! " in 



A CALL FROM THE MARNE 241 

the lui;'.ky \'oices of French drivers, the weary voices 
of men who had fouglit their hearts out without food 
or sleep, the faint voices of the wounded and the 
tremulo of old women and little children among the 
refugees. " Les Americains!" meant more that 
night than they ever had in I'rance. 



XIX 

HOLDING THE PARIS ROAD 

The Germans reach Chateau-Thierry — The motor machine-gun 
unit of the Third Division that was the first American de- 
tachment to enter the battle of the Marne — Marshaling the 
Second Division into battle — A Chief of Staff who welcomed 
difficulties — ^The finished products of General Pershing's train- 
ing, tanned, lean, confident, marching into battle after thirty-six 
hours on the road — The two brigades of Marines and regulars 
— A battalion that marched fifty miles — And took the trail 
again after a few hours' sleep. 

By daybreak of June ist the infantry of the Second 
was beginning to arrive at Montreuil, where the 
news received at headquarters in the schoolhouse 
indicated that the Germans were still gradually ad- 
vancing. Generally, the situation was confused in 
detail, though distinct enough in the necessity of all 
force possible being hurried forward. 

The 9th, which was the first regiment of the 
Second to reach Montreuil, after being all night on 
its feet, was sent immediately to take up a position 
covering the Paris road near». the village of Le 
Thiolet as support for the French troops, who were 
somewhere in front in contact with the enemy. If 
further attacks overpowered the French, they were 
to fall back through our lines in retreat; and our 
business was to stick. Before night, we were to have 
all our infantry either in a support line on either side 
of the Paris road or in immediate reserve. 

242 



HOLDING THE PARIS ROAD 243 

The Germans had taken Chateau-Thierry and the 
crest over which the Paris road runs, the village of 
Vaux beyond it, and a commanding portion of Hill 
204 on the north bank. Hill 204 overlooks the 
town and both banks of the river for miles on either 
side of the town, and the main road from Mont- 
mirail, which sweeps down from the southern wall 
of the Marne valley to the suburb of Chateau- 
Thierry on the southern side of the river. This 
tightened the enemy's grip on the northern bank and 
gave him observation of the southern bank. 

Meanwhile, the 7th Motorized Machine-gun 
Battalion of the Third had literally ridden into 
battle in a fashion in keeping with their most vivid 
anticipation. Theirs had been the first American 
blood shed in the second Marne battle. It hardly 
seemed that they had had time to reach Chateau- 
Thierry from Montmirail before their wounded 
were returning. Interspersed and mixed with the 
French, and under French direction, they would be 
the last to make any claim in keeping with the 
reports which were spread about their playing a lone 
Horatius at the bridge. They had used their ma- 
chine guns as they had been taught to use them in 
covering the retreat of the French across the bridge, 
before it was blown up, and afterwards in keeping 
the Germans from any attempt at a crossing. 

When I visited them some days later, they had 
their guns well placed on the southern river bank 
facing German machine guns on the other. They 
had the suburb all to themselves except for the 
intervals of heavy German shelling and bursts of 
machine-gun fire from German aviators raking the 



244 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

streets. One service that they had performed by 
their deed was to convince the French that the Third 
Division, although it was raw and without battle 
experience, was a most gallant organization, If the 
machine gunners were any criterion of the mettle of 
the other units. 

But this Is wandering away from the Second and 
from the afternoon of June ist when Major General 
Bundy sat In a schoolroom, where staff officers used 
children's desks for writing orders, smoking his cigar 
with the calmness of a man who was used to the 
difficulties of moving 27,000 men, 7,400 animals 
and 1,000 wagons into an active battle sector In 
answer to a hurry order, while his chief of staff 
could apply all that he had learned at that school In 
the wheat fields of Kansas plus all that he had 
learned In France. The more troubles he had, the 
more this C. O. S, was In his element. He thrived 
on the unexpected. To officers who came rushing 
In, he looked up with a certain zest for more trouble. 

"Any rats? I eat rats! " quoth the bull terrier. 

He had supposed that the divisional artillery was 
com.Ing by train only to learn that eighteen of the 
trains which were to bring the artillery and other 
transport had been canceled and all concerned told 
to go by road. Runners were sent out to order 
forced marches and to give instructions as to des- 
tinations. Thus, the Second must wait upon Its artil- 
lery when at any moment It might have to withstand 
a strong attack. To arriving units, or to their com- 
manders who preceded them, the C. O. S. clicked off 
orders locating ammunition dumps, dressing stations 
and routes for transport with a celerity which Indl- 



HOLDING THE PARIS ROAD 245 

cated absolute confidence in his mission on earth. If 
he made mistakes — well, he made them promptly. 
He did not take hours in thinking them out. If he 
corrected them promptly, when he recognized them, 
this was so much gain in time. 

Meanwhile, French aeroplanes flew over the 
schoolhouse dropping message cylinders; and these 
and other bulletins coming in from the front told us 
that the enemy was pressing in the region of Torcy 
and farther north in order to broaden their salient, 
but not yet seriously in front of our new lines, which 
did not mean that he might not dd so at any moment 
as a part of his tactical plan. 

Our eagerness made up for our lack of experience. 
Every order given showed that we were not thinking 
in rearguard terms. Our ammunition dumps and all 
our depots and stations were being pushed forward 
with a view to coming to grips with the enemy. The 
spirit in the schoolroom was in keeping with the ap- 
pearance of the last of the battalions of the Second 
to arrive, which was passing by the schoolhouse in 
the late afternoon. These men had not had any- 
thing like sleep in the last thirty-six hours. They 
were tired, but they were not tired " about the eyes," 
and those weary Frenchmen who had been fighting 
their way back from the Chemin des Dames were. 
" Fresh troops ! " as a French officer exclaimed in 
professional appreciation. We had not been fighting 
for four years. A good night's sleep would cure 
our fatigue. It could not cure that of the veterans 
of all the campaigns from the Marne to the third 
German oiJensive. We were young, and young to 
war. 



246 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

The men in the battalion, almost without excep- 
tion, were under thirty. Their faces had a deeper 
tan than the French, an American Indian tan. Their 
features were sharper than European features. 
Their close-fitting uniforms, their round packs, which 
included blankets and outfit in a single, tightly-bound 
bundle, leaving the limbs and arms free, as for blows, 
and their bodies trained down to muscular leanness, 
suggested a mobile compactness. They leaned for- 
ward a little as they marched as if to get a grip on 
the road and to be nearer to their goal. They were 
the finished products of General Pershing's training; 
formed in the mold that he had set. 

But, I repeat, their most striking characteristic 
in those surroundings was their youth and the energy, 
the drive, the impatience of youth. Even our truck 
and ambulance drivers were young, while the French 
drivers were middle-aged. I have Imagined the roar 
of a French column of trucks saying, " We are old 
at war and wise at war!" and of an American 
column saying, " We are young and we want to 
learn; gangway for us!" With this went the 
masterfulness of youth as well as the elasticity of 
youth. 

I recollect how a company of this battalion, when 
it halted, sent details with their canteens to be filled 
from the spout of the blessed flowing village well of 
Montreull; and how they bathed faces dusty from 
the march and truck rides In the basin, and their 
smiles showed their good teeth which they had, 
thanks to American dentistry. It does not seem 
rio^ht that a soldier should not have good teeth. 
They are a symbol of strength as well as of clean- 



HOLDING THE PARIS ROAD 247 

liness. I suppose that a man whose open mouth 
reveals decayed slivers may shoot as straight or hold 
as fast under shell fire as any other, but I have an 
idea that anyone who can take a firm grip of a piece 
of hard bread or of " canned willy " has a better 
grip on a " strong point " against an attack. 

The battalion, taking up the march again, became 
as some great khaki caterpillar moving on the white 
ribbon of road; and then it halted again and passed 
out of sight into a wood, where it was to wait in 
reserve and the men might drop on the soft, warm 
earth and, in want of their rolling kitchens, eat their 
rations cold and afterward stretch themselves in a 
spell of lazy talk as they rested. There was one 
who said, " Well, I hope that I won't get it before 
I see Paris. I surely do want to see Paris." And 
then he dropped off in the sound sleep of youtli from 
physical fatigue. 

After three or four kilometers, traffic on the road 
ceased and It lay a white, straight blaze leading on 
into the unknown In the late afternoon sun. There 
was scattered gun fire from one side, an occasional 
shell-burst In answer and the occasional rattle of a 
machine gun. The German seemed to be taking 
time to think things over on our immediate front. 
Drawn by the vacant road, my young chauffeur 
would have run right on into the German lines if 
left to himself. When the burst of a 105 sent up 
a spout of earth near us he was overjoyed. 

"Golly! I've seen the holes, but this was the 
first time I ever saw a hole made. Quick work, 
eh? " he said. 

He wanted to go forward to more bursts; but 



248 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

some patches of French blue in a clump of trees 
covering the road with a machine gun were sugges- 
tive of how far we had gone past the turning we 
should have made. This silence, this seemingly un- 
inhabited space, was in a live battle sector at that 
moment; but let points of German field gray break 
out of cover to gain still more ground in their knit- 
ting crocheting process of advance, and all the 
clumps of woods would have awakened with vicious 
and murderous voices. 

A turning, further back on the south side of the 
road, brought you to the headquarters of the 3rd 
Brigade under Brigadier General Lewis and one on 
the north to the headquarters of the 4th or Marine 
Corps Brigade under Brigadier General Harbord. 
I am mentioning both brigades particularly, as the 
part of the 4th, or Marine brigade, was to be 
exploited In a way that might give the impression 
that the 3rd had not been active. When I had last 
seen General Lewis he had been Provost Marshal In 
Paris. Now he had been given a brigade. His op- 
portunity had come. In the farmhouse which was 
his headquarters, he showed not the least sign of 
fatigue and his hand was upon his brigade in a way 
that brings confidence in leadership. 

Brigadier General Harbord had come to France 
as Major Harbord. As Chief of Staff, he had been 
General Pershing's right-hand man in the little room 
in the War Department In organizing the departure 
of the expedition and, later, in building up the organ- 
ization in France. Two weeks previously he had 
been " sent to troops," as the saying goes. Both 
he and General Lewis were to win another star on 



HOLDING THE PARIS ROAD 249 

their shoulders in the next month and to be given 
command of divisions. 

Thus, the brigades were established in their posi- 
tions on a twelve-mile front on the night of June ist. 
Our men had dug themselves shelters in their sup- 
port line and the orders, which they hardly required, 
were to get what rest they could, whether in billets 
or out under the sky where they unrolled their 
blankets and shelter halves. The French expected 
to use them for a counter-attack to-morrow. 

In the gathering dusk after the long summer day 
the 5th Machine-gun Battalion arrived. It was not 
motorized, and had traveled on its own feet some 
fifty miles through suffocating clouds of dust, which 
takes the marching strength out of men. The heads 
of the horses which drew the little carts were down 
and the heads of the men who led the horses and 
of the gunners behind the carts were down, all keep- 
ing along at that grudging, yet continuing gait which 
resolves every ounce of effort and all thought into 
mechanical leg movement. For it is not the fighting 
which is the hardest part in many instances; rather, 
it is the strain of sleeplessness and physical effort in 
reaching the scene of action. 

The weary individual pedestrian counts the miles 
to the goal, with anticipation an invisible strand 
drawing him on. The soldier, who does not know 
where he is to stop, has the advantage of the mo- 
mentum of the whole to keep him going. He is one 
particle of a mass. When the mass moves, he moves. 
The rhythm of steps and comradeship give impulse 
to his steps. When the word was passed along that 
at last the battalion had reached its destination, you 



250 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

appreciated that then the men would realize how 
tired they were. Any place on the ground would do 
for a bed; any place of rest off the dusty road. 

I mention this battalion because of what was to 
happen to it before morning. At midnight, the 
French had reports of a gap in their lines at Colombs 
and asked if we could fill the gap. The 23rd 
Infantry was our divisional reserve. Its com- 
manding officer, Colonel Malone, was sent for to 
come to Headquarters. When the question was put 
to him he said, "Yes, sir! " and called for a field 
clerk and dictated the orders for the march and the 
dispositions with a celerity that delighted the French 
general. Thus the gap was filled; and with the 
weary 23rd went a weary battalion of Marines and 
that very weary 5th Machine-gun Battalion. There 
was real heroism in the way those machine gunners 
received the news. 

They made a few caustic remarks, and some 
started humming the what-do-we-care tune to read- 
just their perspective to the change; and then they 
began treading the road again. Civilized will-power 
is a great thing. It carried the machine gunners to 
their new positions. If they did not get a shot at 
the German to pay for this hike — well, their opinion 
of the Staff would not be improved. 

The day had recorded further fierce fighting 
around Rheims and in the neighborhood of Villers- 
Cotteret and in the region on the Second's left flank. 
There had been no further effort on the part of the 
(iiermans who were across the Marne at Dormans 
to extend their lodgment on the south bank, where 
they were content to hold what they had gained, 



HOLDING THE PARIS ROAD 251 

leaving the river between them and the French at 
other points. " We shall stop the barbarians at the 
Marne ! " as the old peasant had said. 

Not all of the Third Division's infantry had re- 
ported, even on the second day after the motorized 
machine-gun battalion had been in action. One bat- 
talion had been delayed by a train wreck. Units that 
arrived were already being interspersed with the 
French and some were already engaged. One regi- 
ment and, later, a battalion of another were to be 
sent across the Marne at Nogent, where we held 
both banks with an intact bridge, to assist in hold- 
ing the enemy from pressing farther toward Paris, 
As a division, the Third was in a process of decen- 
tralization which was to leave General Dickman 
subject to varying vicissitudes of authority which 
Included French troops as well as portions of his 
own under his direction at times. 



XX 

BELLEAU WOOD AND VAUX 

The stiffening effect of our presence on the Fr^Ksh troops — A 
crisis in ammunition promptly met — Under the watchful eyes 
of the Germans — Belleau Wood and the Marraes — A wood 
bristling with machine guns — It is a tradition and our nature 
to "go to it" — How the Marines "went to k" in Belleau 
Wood — And took Bouresches — The regulars, in rivalry, go a 
little too far — Cautiousness not the besetting ain of our sol- 
diers — A hunt of man-hornet nests — Our mes refuse to con- 
sider that rules of the German General Staff — A bunch of 
wildcats! — The 3rd Brigade of regulars cleans up Vaux. 

Our entry Into the Marne battle had been dramatic, 
and the French have a strong sense of the dramatic. 
A reference in the French communique to the part 
which our machine gunners had played at Chateau- 
Thierry appeared when the outlook was most critical 
and just before the German offensive slowed down. 
Word of mouth news, which supplements official 
news, traveling fast under the censorship, when every 
ear is open and every tongue has only one theme, 
only increased the moral effect of the part we played. 
Every peasant who saw the motor machine-gun 
battalion of the Third flying along the road told 
other peasants, who told still others. Our soldiers 
In box cars bound toward the Marne were agents of 
a reassuring publicity. By the morning of June ist 
America was in evidence in marching troops, in 
motor-truck columns and dispatch riders all the way 

252 



BELLEAU WOOD AND VAUX 253 

from Montmirail to Paris. French officers and dis- 
patch riders and motor-truck drivers were the heralds 
of our advent along all the roads leading to the 
front. At last America was seen and felt. She 
was no longer associated with stable trench sectors, 
but had become a mobile factor in defense against a 
threatening and powerful offensive. 

When a column of motor trucks carrying Ameri- 
can soldiers passed through Paris, although the fact 
was not published in the press, all Paris knew it in a 
few hours. The number of trucks and soldiers had 
been doubled by the time the report reached the 
suburbs, and it was further multiplied as it reached 
the provinces through travelers and over the tele- 
phone. Bordeaux and Marseilles, Tours and Dijon, 
all France had this tidbit which appealed to popu- 
lar imagination when Paris was supposed to be in 
danger. 

Where the effect told most was with the French 
troops. Those in front of the Second Division, 
which was still in a support position on June 2nd, 
spoke in no uncertain terms of the stiffening effect of 
our presence. As I have said, it gave them resolu- 
tion in holding the strong German attack that the 
Germans made that day in an effort to continue their 
advance. Our machine gunners assisted in its re- 
pulse. The French were driven back at points al- 
most to our lines, but pride of race and of veterans 
in the presence of a young force had its influence 
in strengthening a determination that deterred them 
from leaving the task to us. 

The night of June 2nd thus found us secure in the 
positions we had taken up on the night of the ist, 



254 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

with all our communications being organized and 
transport, engineers, signal corps, and, best of all, 
our guns, arriving. The camouflage of the gun bar- 
rels was hidden under layers of dust, and horses 
drooped and men nodded from snatches of sleep on 
the jouncing carriages and caissons, but they were 
ready to go into positions and begin firing when 
the orders came for immediate action. 

When it was found — an unpleasant fact at the 
time — that our artillery and the French artillery, 
too, were short of ammunition, the chief of staff 
of the Second unloaded trucks carrying small-arms 
ammunition and sent them to bring back a supply 
which, it was said, was particularly reserved for 
emergencies by General Pershing's order. Was not 
this an emergency? The chief of staff thought so, 
and has not yet been court-martialed for his action. 
In fact, he was later made a brigadier, though not 
for purloining the C.-in-C.'s ammunition. Other 
things in his career during the month of June were 
considered. He is not coy in his relations with the 
enemy. 

On the 3rd, the German confined his attacks for 
the most part to the northward of us, but was evi- 
dently feeding in machine-gun groups on our front 
with a view to future mischief. On the early morn- 
ing of the 4th, we took over from the French a 
twelve-mile front, with the 3rd Brigade holding 
from Bonneil to well across the Paris road and 
the 4th from its left to the west of Belleau Wood. 
The 23rd Regiment and the Marine battalion and 
the 5th Machine-gun Battalion which had been sent 
to fill the gap at Colombs were returned to the divi- 



BELLEAU WOOD AND VAUX 255 

sion, which now became a united family holding its 
own sector. We might do as we pleased, then, in 
that twelve miles of battle line, with no reserves 
between us and the Marne j^and this meant we would 
not leave the Germans to do the attacking. 

From Hill 204 all the way to our right the Ger- 
mans had the advantage of observation. Our roads, 
particularly, were under the watchful eyes of German 
balloons. German aviators scouted our positions all 
too freely. I saw them flying so low over our in- 
fantry that the Iron Crosses on their wings were 
visible to the naked eye. They dropped bombs in 
broad daylight. 

The country is uneven, with many woods and 
the usual open fields between woods and villages. In 
front of the Marines the Germans held the important 
tactical point of the village of Bouresches and the 
railroad station, and they had filtered into the ad- 
joining Belleau Wood and around it as an ideal 
cover for machine-gun nests. This Bouresches-Bel- 
leau line v/as excellent for the purposes of the enemy 
if they were to stabilize their positions and cease to 
advance, or as a jumping-off place for continuing 
their offensive. 

The spirit of rivalry between the 3rd (a regular 
brigade) and the 4th (the Marines) was very 
pronounced. No regular was going to admit that 
any quarter-deck soldier was in his class; and no 
Marine — he considered himself as belonging to a 
corps d' elite — was going to allow any impression that 
he was not a little better than any regular to get 
abroad, if he could help it. Marine officers might 
not have had the schooling in tactics of the regulars, 



256 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

but being plain infantrymen, with no expectation of 
developing into Joffres or Hindenburgs, they con- 
sidered that at least they were not afraid to fight. 
People had said that the Marine Corps was an 
anachronism and ought to be eliminated from our 
armed forces. Its honor and future were at stake 
there before Bouresches and Belleau Wood. If it 
were to get more recruits as a small organization, 
which is hardly accepted by the army and not, per- 
haps, altogether by the navy as a little brother, it 
must be worthy of those recruiting posters at home. 

A Marine colonel fastened the globe insignia on 
the collar of General Harbord; and formally made 
him a Marine. The General said that he was as 
proud as if they had given him the Medaille Mili- 
taire. As he did not propose to leave the advantage 
of tactical positions to the Germans when they were 
nearer Paris than they had even been before, he 
proceeded to act with full faith in the capabilities of 
his brigade and its restlessly belligerent manhood. 
One of the Marine regiments had come to France 
with the First Division, and, as I have already men- 
tioned, had been demobilized for a time to do guard 
and courier duty. The other had had long training. 
Both had veteran non-commissioned officers, and no 
one questioned the disciplined and soldierly bearing 
of every platoon in the brigade. 

On the 4th, the first day that they were in the 
front line, the Marines repulsed a German attack. 
At dawn, on the morning of the 6th, the second day 
after they were in the line, they made an attack in 
conjunction with the French on the left to rectify 
the line in the direction of Torcy; and they went 



BELLEAU WOOD AND VAUX 257 

through machine-gun fire and shell fire to their ob- 
jectives, doing it all according to pattern. This 
might have been enough for a day's work; but it was 
only an introduction to what was to follow. 

The way to act in an active sector was to be active, 
according to General Harbord's idea; and the obvi- 
ous place for a first offensive on our line was in 
front of the 4th Brigade, to the regret of the 3rd 
Brigade. At 2 p.m. an order was typed off at Bri- 
gade Headquarters for an operation beginning at 
5 P.M. which was to take both Bouresches and Bel- 
jeau Wood. There was a brief, raking artillery 
preparation of the wood and a concentration on 
Bouresches, which was to be stormed in the second 
phase after Belleau had been won. 

In the name of the months that they had drilled, 
of the hardships endured, of the wearisome vigils 
of a harassing trench sector and of their corps, the 
Marines could have only one thought: success. 
Senior officers could not consider the niceties of the 
craft in not exposing themselves. They must put 
their personal weight and influence into this, their 
first attack. Every man was too preoccupied to 
think of risk. With the jauntiness of parade, and 
the offensive zeal which had been long nursed be- 
come a burning desire set on the goal of that dark 
clump of trees and undergrowth ahead they advanced 
into the wood. 

At the very outset they met machine-gune fire ; and 
out of the wood after they were in it came the per- 
sistent rattle of rifle fire, varied by veritable storms of 
machine-gun fire. Wounded began to flow back down 
the various ravines. Calls came for Stokes mortars 



2S8 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

from the hidden scene of that vicious medley, along 
with the report that Colonel Catlin had been 
wounded a half-hour after the attack was begun. 
The machine-gun positions in the outskirts of the 
woods had been taken; but they were only the first 
lot. I have been through many woods where Ger- 
man machine gunners had ensconced themselves, and 
none that I remember afforded better positions for 
defense against any enemy in the wood or against one 
approaching it from our front. 

Not only was the undergrowth thick, but there 
were numerous rocks and ravines and pockets, all 
of which favored the occupant. There was nothing 
new in the system which the Germans applied, and 
which the Allies also apply; but not until troops go 
against it for the first time do they realize its char- 
acter. Its formidability is dependent upon the stout- 
ness of heart of the defenders, their craft and the 
number of their guns. With the thicket so dense 
that it prevents a man being seen even fifty feet 
away, a weapon with a range of three thousand 
yards is easily screened. Each gun has its zone of 
fire, in relation to the others, to sweep every square 
yard of the ground; and fire is held until it will have 
a maximum effect. There is no flanking any gun, 
when the supply of guns is sufficient, for hidden guns 
are waiting to turn their blasts on the effort; and 
guns, furthermore, are placed in such a manner as 
to give both lateral and plunging fire. 

Crafty veteran soldiers might have decided, as 
soon as they had developed the character of the de- 
fenses, that the cost of going on was too high; and 
a veteran, crafty staff, accepting the dictum of experi- 



BELLEAU WOOD AND VAUX 259 

ence, would have adopted more arduous measures, 
involving powerful artillery work, for accomplishing 
their purpose. Such woods as these had been many 
times submitted to hurricanes of shells that had up- 
rooted all the young trees and left only the limbless, 
slashed trunks of old trees standing before they were 
taken, particularly in former days before we came to 
open warfare tactics. 

When they could locate a gun our men concen- 
trated their rifles upon it. The crackle of bullets 
passing about the gunners' heads, even if they were 
not hit, might stop them from firing; but, meanwhile, 
some other gun was cutting the twigs around the 
heads of the marksmen. The wounded crawled back 
behind rocks, or into ravines, or to any place where 
they could find a dead space. The instinct of our 
men, caught in such a mesh of fire which was every 
minute causing a casualty, was to come to close 
quarters; and they wanted to go free of packs, of 
blouses, shirts open, rifle in hand, with their faith in 
their bayonets. Hot cries accompanied the flashing 
drive of the cold steel through the underbrush. 
Many bayonets might drop from the hands of the 
men who were hit, but some bayonets would " get 
there." And that was the thing — to get there. 

We have always fought in this way. It is tradi- 
tion and our nature. "We go to it! " as we say. 
German gunners ran from their guns in face of such 
assaults; others tried to withdraw their guns; others 
were taken in groups huddled in ravines as youth, 
transcendent in its white rage of determination, bore 
down upon them and gathered them in or, again, 
drove the bayonet home into gunners who stuck to 



26o AMERICA IN FRANCE 

their guns until the instant that forms with eyes 
gleaming leapt at them. Our young platoon com- 
manders had the task of leading all to themselves in 
the thickets among the tree trunks, as they always 
have in such fights, while senior officers wait on the 
result. When night came we had to yield some of 
the ground which we had taken or remain without 
cover in the face of the blasts; but we had securely 
established ourselves in a portion of the wood. With 
captured German machine guns, men, whom we could 
not reach with food and water, held their gains, 
taking food and water from the American and Ger- 
man dead. 

Although the first phase of the attack had not been 
fully accomplished, it was determined not to hold 
back the other companies, which had been waiting 
under shell fire that only aroused their eagerness to 
advance, from undertaking the second phase. Theirs 
was a simpler task than that of their comrades who 
had stormed the wood. Artillery preparation in 
clearing the way was, of course, more serviceable 
against a village than against a wood, and neither 
machine gun nor shell fire delayed the precision of the 
movement across the open into the village where, 
with the avidity of their zeal and the supple quick- 
ness of their litheness and youth, and in the elation 
of their first experience of the kind, our men cleared 
the cellars of Bouresches of all Germans in hiding 
and gained their objective. Then they set about with 
equal energy preparing protection against the re- 
taliatory bombardment which was bound to come. 
Bouresches was solidly theirs when morning came; 
and they proved it by withering a German counter- 



BELLEAU WOOD AND VAUX 261 

attack with their rifle and machine-gun fire. The 
Germans covered the roads to the rear with their 
artillery in revenge. A lone man could not approach 
the town without being sniped at and shelled for 
weeks to come. 

The regulars, too, were not altogether out of 
the action. A portion of the 23rd Infantry was 
due to advance in liaison with the Marines, in 
order to establish a satisfactory tactical line, or, 
roughly, to prevent a salient. This frontal warfare 
is always a game of contriving salients for the enemy 
and avoiding them for yourselves. There seems to 
have been a little misunderstanding about the char- 
acter of the cooperation and the time of movement. 
It was enough for the regulars that they as well as 
the Marines had a chance to attack and they made 
the most of it, lest they should not get another. 

They had an objective so limited that their en- 
thusiasm carried them over it at a time when short- 
age of ammunition did not allow of artillery support. 
There were Germans ahead and they were going to 
reach the Germans. The Germans proposed to hold 
them off. A close and ugly duel ensued, waged 
around German machine-gun nests, with the result 
that groups of Americans each sought a new ob- 
jective on its own account. The regulars were wag- 
ing a battle of their own and winning a victory of 
their own which was outside of staff plans. 

These warriors were a little cross when they were 
brj^ught back in the night to dig in along the line of 
their original objective; but, as they said, they had 
" mixed it up " with the Germans, anyway, and their 
opinion still held that an American — they would even 



262 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

include an American Marine — could lick a Gciinan. 
Their regimental commander, in turn, ought to have 
been wroth with them, as this kind of a runaway, 
free-for-all light beyond an objective is strictly against 
^he rules; but he concluded that it was better to have 
such a spirit in soldiers than too much caution. 

1 fear that caution was not our strong point. As 
novices, we wanted all the emotions. Our imagina- 
tions expanded with the very thought of being in the 
Marnc battle. Some men probablv had the inner 
prompting that it was in keeping with ethics to ex- 
pose themselves lest they should be accused of 
timidity, but rarely was this the reason. Instances of 
recklessness were due to the sheer intoxication of 
the moment and to overwhelming curiosity, and par- 
ticularly to the desire to come to close quarters with 
the enemy. Visiting officers from G. H. Q. and other 
headquarters, who came to acquire information for 
application in the training of other divisions, must 
go up under shell fire and into the front line if they 
were allowed, or else they would not be fully in- 
structed. 

The young officer who, I am informed, drove a 
motor into Bouresches the day it was taken, being 
shelled all the way in and all the way back, had a 
glorious time and was congratulating himself on his 
experience until he was inducted into the professional 
truth that he was several kinds of a fool who had 
been exposing others who might be useful members 
of the army. A commander of a battalion, when 
his men were waiting for the moment of attack, saw 
a man in uniform standing up in the line some dis- 
tance away. There was a burst of very strong 



BELLEAU WOOD AND VAUX 263 

language emphasized by a blankety-blank from the 
commander on the subject of lying down and not 
drawing fire. 'Jhc man looked around blandly and 
was recognized as a chaplain. 

" Well, well," he said chidingly, " you are very 
vehement, but I suppose that it takes all kinds of 
men to make a world." 

Then something cracked close to the chaplain's 
ear which made him drop lower than his knees, 
whether in prayer or not witness sayeth not. 

The motor-dispatch rider carrying messages to our 
machine gunners in the Chateau-Thierry suburb had 
to pass over a long and sinister stretch of exposed 
road which was frequently shelled. His cycle was 
damaged, he had been wounded and had been 
knocked down by a piece of shell that penetrated his 
helmet to the scalp and would have given the ordi- 
nary mortal concussion of the brain; but his only 
source of disffess was that they would not allow 
him to go out and snipe at Germans on the Marne 
in intervals when he was waiting for messages. 

Meanwhile, the Marines were there in Belleau 
Wood cheek by jowl with the Germans, who were 
doubtless slipping more machine guns into their por- 
tion of the wood. The Germans must be made to 
understand that this wood belonged to the Marines; 
while the Germans to discourage further attacks on 
our part began gassing the approaches both to 
Bouresches and Belleau. In that era a real " hate " 
was on. We had grim work in ren.oving our 
wounded and burying our dead, and dangerous work 
in bringing up wagons over shelled roads and for- 
warding rations to the men in the front line, with the 



264 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

3rd as well as the 4th Brigade. But Bouresches 
sent back assuring news from its isolation. The 
water supply was good. The men had hot cotiee 
and they caught chickens and killed a hog and a cow. 
Their messages were so \ erv cheerful out In that vW- 
lage crumbling under shell lire that you might have 
thought they were having a holiday in a summer 
resort. Wasn't it their village, and the lirst that the 
Marines had taken? 

Before our next attack on Bclleau we gave it a 
more powerful artillery preparation, and we learned 
afresh the lesson that guns will not reach machine- 
gun nests in the midst of congeries of boulders. A 
machine gun is a small target when well placed and 
a direct hit, or a very close hit, of a high explosive 
is required to put it out of action. Shells burst pre- 
maturely upon striking tree trunks and before reach- 
ing the earth. 

When our men advanced at five o'clock on the 
morning of June iith they found resistance at least 
softened. Some machine gunners who had not lost 
their nerve after the hour's artillery pounding stuck 
to their posts; others at the sight of our men break- 
ing through the thickets threw up their hands; others 
went in hiding among the boulders, no longer sol- 
diers, but children frightened by the lightnings. The 
nests that held us back formed islands in our progress 
which had to be cleaned up by special details. 

Let it be repeated that the very irregular bow 
shape of Belleau Wood, no less than the character 
of the ground, favored the defenders in forming 
cross zones of fire. It was a stranae and fierce busi- 
ness there in the dense brush, where men of the 



BELLEAU WOOD AND VAUX 265 

same squad could not keep touch with one another 
at times. Happily, we had located some of the nests 
before we attacked, but those farther ahead we could 
locate only when they began firing or when we stum- 
bled upon gunners who were still hugging cover after 
the bombardment, or simply had concluded that it 
was better to be a live prisoner than to die for the 
Kaiser. 7"hey were taken in groups and singly, taken 
standing behind trees and hugging the holes they had 
dug in the earth. Some were trying to retreat with 
their guns; others fled precipitately, and many kept 
serving their guns. It was a hunt of man-hornet 
nests, with khaki the hunter and the German gray 
the hunted. Our men fought even more fiercely than 
in their first attack. 7 hey wanted to finish the Bel- 
leau Wood job this time; but this was not to be, 
though we had taken thirty machine guns, two minen- 
werfers and three hundred prisoners. 

After advancing to a certain point we again met 
the machine-gun nest system working too thoroughly 
to permit of further effort, except at unnecessary 
sacrifice. The colonel who had made the attack 
said that with further artillery preparation he be- 
lieved that he could master the rest of the wood. 
When the guns had again done their duty his men, 
whose eyes glittered now at the very mention of Bel- 
leau Wood, made another attack with the ardor of 
men who have faith that one more fierce effort would 
do the trick. They took more prisoners and more 
machine guns. For a time, the news that the run- 
ners brought back indicated that success was com- 
plete. 

Now, the enemy, smarting under our success, be- 



266 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

gan bringing up reserves and concentrated a terrific 
artillery fire on Bouresches, the wood and all the 
neighborhood. The wood had become a point of 
honor with the Germans no less than with the Amer- 
icans. They saturated it with a bombardment of 
vperite gas which clings to the earth and the trees 
and burns fiesh that comes in contact with it. As the 
Germans could hardly send their own men into this 
area for two or three days to suffer the efiects in- 
tended for us, we withdrew all except a small main- 
taining force from Belleau. Meanwhile, the Ger- 
mans with their reserves made an attack in force on 
Bouresches. By all criterions this attack, ought to 
have succeeded. Some Germans penetrated the edge 
of the village and a good many of them remained 
there — dead. Our machine-gun fire and rifle fire 
drove all others who escaped back to their lines. At 
the same time, under cover of their artillery, the 
Germans had reenforced their machine-gun units 
which remained in the edge of the wood, probably 
thinking that as soon as the effects of the yperite 
were over the recovery of the wood would not be 
difficult. 

For twelve days, now, the Second Division had 
been in the line and the Marines had put all their 
physical and nerve vitality into the effort against Bel- 
leau. They had gone into the fight in the fettle of 
race horses. Glimpses of the approaches to the 
wood during an attack, when retaliatory shell fire 
descended on wounded and German prisoners alike, 
formed the most vivid picture of war that I had yet 
seen behind the American lines. The prisoners re- 
garded their captors in a kind of wondering and 



BELLEAU WOOD AND VAUX 267 

tragic stupor. 7'heir staff had told them that the 
Americans were untrained, a mob, negligible. Yet 
these Americans had charged straight at the machine 
guns; they had crept around the machine guns and 
then leapt out of the thickets with furious abrupt- 
ness. They were untamed, wild, refusing to con- 
sider the rules laid down by the German Staff for 
their conduct. Captured German intelligence re- 
ports, contradicting German propaganda, spoke of 
them as only needing a little more training to be 
first-class shock troops according to the German con- 
ception — which was a real German compliment. 

The battalion which had made the two attacks that 
all but finished the task, suffering from machine-gun 
fire, mortar fire, shell fire and gas, had reached the 
stage of exhaustion when nature overwhelms will; 
when, although a man says, " I'm all right — as good 
as ever! " his eyelids droop as the sentence is fin- 
ished and the next moment he falls dead asleep. 
This battalion must have rest; and the remainder of 
the brigade, with all its spirit and energy responding 
to the driver's hand, must also have some relief from 
the strain. 

A regiment from the Third Division was now in- 
troduced into the brigade for six days and sent into 
Belleau, a regiment that had not had long training 
and was unfamiliar with the ground and with such 
merciless fighting in such surroundings; and the 
tired, tried 4th Brigade of the Second, which had 
had no rest, took over the task in Bouresches, where, 
under the persistent shelling, the lookouts kept their 
" death watch " while all the other men were under 
cover. If the death watch were killed, another man 



268 AM1:RUA in FRANCE 

took Ills place 111 keeping a lookout tor .uiv iiunc- 
moiit ot the ciicMuy which wouKi require that everv 
member oi the garrison go to the position assigned to 
him tor resisting an attack as soon as the eneinv 
barrage had lifted. 

1 lie Ciermans had been strengthening their re- 
maining strongholds in the wood, and particularly 
one stronghold among a congerie of boulders in very 
dense thicket witli every avenue oi approach covered 
by its fire. I'nits oi the Third Division were to try 
on June 21st and 2:nd to force their reduction, but 
fortune was not with the attempts. Some oi the Cier- 
man machine gunners, it was reported, had put on 
American uniforms, which enabled them for a time 
to deceive our own men as to the progress oi our 
attacking parties, with resultant ambushes. 

The Marines were put back in Belleau, relieving 
the regiment oi the Third. The Ciermans still had 
access to go and come freely to their strongholds in 
the north end of the wood. It was an old trick with 
the Germans, this holding the edge and approaches oi 
a wood with the main body oi the wood protecting 
them from shell tire. On numerous occasions it 
had been successful. General llarbord was deter- 
mined that it should not be successful on this occa- 
sion. The Marines made another effort with Ncry 
small forces which failed; but in this etfort they 
gained the knowledge for the final one that succeeded 
when all their preparations were correct in e\ery 
detail. 

As one oi tiie reports that came back said, " Our 
men went through them like a bunch of wildcats! " 
There could be no better description of what hap- 



BELLEAU WOOn AM) VAUX 2^9 

pcncd. 'Jhat last rush, after artillery preparation, 
had a cat-like ferocity which put all thickets and all 
rnachine-^n nests behind it, and looked out into the 
open beyond the object of three weeks of straining 
muscle, sleepless vi^^il and desperate courage. Once 
we were among them, the ^'jermans who remained 
alive bent to the storm, 'i he two hundred prisoners 
taken in that little area was a further proof of the 
importance attached to the wood. 'J he Cjerman dead 
who were buried there, after they had fought with 
a fiendish resolution that trained German soldiers 
should not yield to untrained Americans, were still 
further proof. 

()ur attacks on Bclleau Wood had been justified 
by the result. In all we had taken seven hundred Ger- 
mans alive out of the woods, and severe as our casu- 
alties had been, the prisoners exceeded the number of 
our dead without counting the numerous German 
dead, which, in the cold accounting of war, was an 
unusual accomplishment. We had also proved our 
mastery over the enemy. We had set out to take 
a position and we had taken it, which was of infinite 
value to the morale of a young army and of corre- 
sponding influence in weakening that of an enemy 
when he faced our troops. Forever, the Marines 
v/ill consider the Helleau Wood as theirs, and in 
recognition of their title the French changed the 
name to that of Marine Brigade Wood. 

Another phase of the A. M. F. development had 
passed. The skillful First had taken a village in an 
established sector. Now the Second Division had 
taken a wood; and villages and woods, particularly 
woods, are the points of resistance in France, the 



270 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

symbols of success and failure. There remained only 
one further experience to complete our curriculum : 
participation In a great offensive drive, which was to 
come. 

Continuing with the history of the Second In the 
month of June and thus anticipating chronology, we 
come to the capture of Vaux and positions along the 
line to Hill 204 on July ist by the 3rd Brigade, 
which had been repulsing minor attacks and making 
some minor attacks often under shell fire, while the 
4th Brigade had been holding the stage. Vaux 
was a slightly larger village than Bouresches, situ- 
ated In a valley before the road rises to pass over 
the crest to Chateau-Thierry. Our intelligence serv- 
ice had located every house with a large cellar in the 
place and the Germans must be in the cellars. Act- 
ing upon this information, the work of the artillery 
was easily plotted. The accuracy of its fire, as the 
ruins revealed afterward, was more in keeping with 
sharp-shooting than shooting with guns. Plump — 
plump ! we put the heavy shells Into Vaux with a 
merciless regularity as a nerve-wrecking introduction 
to the final storm which we visited upon it before 
the infantry attack. 

Through the four weeks in our active line the 
men of the 3rd Brigade had been hardened and dis- 
ciplined, learning self-reliance and team play. Held 
to one line, while the 4th Brigade had had con- 
tinual offensive action, their ardor, now that their 
turn for attack came, was schooled with very exact in- 
structions as to the details of the operation. Emer- 
gencies had been foreseen. Each officer knew his 
part. There could be no faltering in the face of fire 



BELLEAU WOOD AND VAUX 271 

considering the spirit of the men, which was fur- 
ther aroused by fifteen hours' intense shelling which 
they endured from the Germans before they went 
over the top. 

On our right we were to advance in liaison with 
the French who were to attack Hill 204, which 1 
have already described as commanding Chateau- 
Thierry. Thus, the movement was broader than a 
front necessary for attacking the village. We made 
it with a clockwork precision behind our barrage. 
When machine-gun fire developed that was one of the 
emergencies. We took care of the machine guns with 
rifle fire and automatics and encircling tactics. 

Five minutes after our men had gone over the 
top they were in the outskirts of Vaux. Having 
maps of the location of cellars, the details assigned 
for the purpose knew exactly where to go in order 
to gather in the garrison as prisoners. There were 
sharp encounters, but they did not last long. Our 
advance had been too rapid, our artillery fire, thanks 
to the excellent observation v/e had of the town in 
the valley, too effective to allow of much resistance. 
" There's nothing to it; it's a cinch ! " the captors of 
Vaux said. Vaux was a perfect success, so smoothly 
conducted that it was void of sensational incidents. 
The 4th Brigade had taken five hundred prisoners 
as further evidence that it was doing its part in keep- 
ing up the record of the Second Division. 



XXI 



WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 

Flattering rumors of our flighting powers — The ethics of dose- 
quarter tighting — Our men fought cleanly and honorably — 
With the arrival of our wounded the Red Cross was found 
ready for every emergency — Our wounded take hardships as 
a matter of course — Compensations for being wounded — Do 
wounded men " want" to go back to battle? 

For the Allies the action of the Second and Third 
Divisions was a blood-test ot our purpose in the war. 
It silenced the last of the insidious whispers back 
of the lines which said that we might be relied upon 
only to build wareliouses and do Red Cross and 
Y. M. C. A. work, and hold quiet trench sectors, and 
it also silenced those comrades-in-arms of the whis- 
perers, the Germain propagandists, who said that as 
we would not even goTo'~waragainsPl\Icxico in our 
material interest, we would never tight very hard in 
Europe, where we had no material interest. We 
were fighting in Europe, of course, in order that 
gentrv who reasoned in this fashion might be enlight- 
ened about the cause of the war. 

The French made us veritable prodigies of valor; 
and at home our people were as enthusiastic as every 
people are when in any war its sons, by their gal- 
lantry, renew the faith which every country has in 
its manhood. Reports, based upon the pantherish 



WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 273 

i|uality of our soldiers, sent us into action in Moham- 
medan fury stripped to the waist. Ihe accuracy of 
our shooting surpassed any target range records. 
Life was nothing to us. We were rash beyond all 
reason. We saw red when we charged and kept on 
?oing until v*'e killed the foe or were killed. Con- 
idering the immense army which we were as- 
sembling, it was most reassuring to France to think 
in this fashion. 

Gossip said openly and public reports hinted that 
we did not bother to take prisoners. The reiported 
remark of the /Australians that we were good soldiers 
but a " bit rough " was a conversational tidbit in 
London and Paris in keeping with the idea, held in 
some quarters, that men who came from overseas 
must have the streak of savagery which is associated 
with lands where civilized races have supplanted 
savages. 

We might as well consider this subject now by say- 
ing, to begin with, that any commanding officer who 
incites his men not to take prisoners is a fool. If 
there is anything that makes an enemy fight with the 
desperation of a rat in a hole, it is the conviction 
that his life is forfeit in any event. We should wel- 
come taking the whole German army prisoners. 

There are occasions v/hen no quarter can be given. 
When you are fighting in the darkness you must kill 
any enemy who shows sign of action. When he is 
in a reckless mood, you cannot leave him loose at 
your back in a trench while there are plenty of hand 
grenades and rifles within his reach. From the mo- 
ment that he holds up his hands it must be assured 
that he is a non-combatant for the duration of the 



274 AMERICA IN FRx^NCE 

v/ar. If an enemy has developed the habit of sur- 
rendering and then re-entering the fight when an 
opportunity offers, he must realize that he will not 
have the advantage of a doubt in a crisis. As be- 
tween taking an enemy's life and having your life 
or the life of a comrade risked, you take the enemy's 
life. This is efficient war-making; and the process 
works out without deliberation, when blood is 
hot. 

A machine gunner who sticks to his gun while he 
looks out from his nest at the bodies of men fallen 
from his fire a few yards away, and who throws up 
his hands and cries " Kamerad! " as the survivors of 
the charge press upon him, cannot expect to stay a 
bayonet thrust from one of the comrades of the 
fallen, where mercy would only encourage other 
gunners in other nests to continue killing to the 
last second in the confidence that " Kamerad! " will 
save their lives. 

Yet our men have given quarter on such occasions, 
out of the instinct which arrests a blow at the sight 
of a man who places his fate in your hands. I have 
heard no verified accounts of killing in cold blood. 
It is against our nature. Of course, some soldiers 
will talk " big," particularly if they think that the 
listener wants to hear something grisly and bloody; 
but they do not act up to their talk. 

"Your Kaiser's got you in wrong! We're going 
to keep pounding you till you find it out, you poor 
boobs!" as I heard one American soldier say to 
some prisoners. This seems to me a fairly illumi- 
nating expression of our attitude and our cause. We 
have fought cleanly and honorably, and those who 



WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 275 

bear the burden of death and hardship require no 
incentive from rumor-mongers in order to continue 
to do their duty in the light of their principles and 
of sound military training. 

Our surgeons had now to meet red emergency in 
the field and in the hospital at Meaux. 1 he Red 
Cross, which in the early period of the expedition 
had had to find other fields of service than that of 
caring for wounded, might come to the assistance of 
the Army Medical Corps. Major Perkins had fore- 
seen such an emergency and his organization had 
accumulated immense quantities of supplies of all 
kinds. It was ready in a kind of work in which 
readiness is everything. It has the advantage over 
that great official machine, the army, in being able 
to pay cash and in summoning civil assistance for 
short periods to meet sudden requirements. 

Indeed, for all the auxiliaries the June fighting and 
the much heavier July fighting that was to follow 
meant an introduction into a new and active phase. 
The Y. M. C. A. and the K. of C. men were rushing 
about in their little trucks to supply hot coffee, lemon- 
ade, chocolate — anything they could find in Paris for 
the tired and hungry fighters when they returned 
from the front with prodigious appetites. It was 
an occasion, also, when the sheep might be sepa- 
rated from goats among the workers; the line drawn 
between the man and the woman joy-riding to Europe 
for a six-months' tour with a fondness for a station 
in ParFs, and the man and the woman who had the 
real spirit of service. 

The Red Cross tented hospital on the race track 
at Auteuil, on the outskirts of Paris, sprang up as 



276 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

by magic because all the material for it had been in 
storage. It was most reassuring to the visitor in its 
, up-to-date appointments and organization, as it re- 
I ceived the wounded who had been evacuated from 
the hospitals at the front. To the wounded in the 
airy marquees in soft June weather, the wonderful 
thing was that they were to see Paris. They could 
consider that prospect as they lay on their cots, 
unless pain numbed their thoughts. The severe 
cases which hung on the edge of the other world 
breathing with an effort, or faintly; the acute cases, 
with eyes dazed; the cases of a little gas burn, or 
a light shell wound, or a bullet wound — superficially 
one hospital is much like another. All who were 
getting better were happy in the way that only men 
who have been wounded understand. Hospitaliza- 
tion had not been quite all that it should be at the 
outset of our fighting on the Marne, owing to an 
American division having been introduced into the 
French army at a time of stress and some confusion; 
but there was no complaint from officers or soldiers. 
As we were a people used to home comforts, it might 
be wondered how we should bear hardships; but we 
took them as a matter of course. 

Wasn't it war ? And the most terrible of all wars ? 
For three years we had been reading of its horrors, 
of the misery of the trenches, of the use of gas and 
flame throwers, of the hideous wounds from shell fire 
and of battalions which had been shattered and re- 
newed again and again. We had seen pictures of 
ruined villages and trench lines smashed by prelim- 
inary bombardments. We had had three years of 
instructional preparation for what we should have 



WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 277 

to endure if we gave up our security and took part 
n the inferno, 

A generation unfamiliar with war had the ad- 
vantage of an example in its own time to restrain 
the enthusiasm which goes forth at the march to 
the strains of martial music to an adventure whose 
character only a previous generation which had 
fought could understand. A reasoning and keenly 
perceptive democracy, we went into the war with our 
eyes open. A nervous people, we bore our pain 
better than the Germans who boasted that they had 
no nerves. I had an idea that the young German 
recruits had been kept from thinking of the conse- 
quences of battle and that pain came to them as a 
surprise. The Kaiser had not mentioned this inci- 
dent in world conquest for glorifying the Hohen- 
zollerns. 

Convalescent, bathed and shaved, our Americans 
In the marquees at Auteuil or at the base hospitals 
might enjoy the thought that now they were entitled 
to a wound chevron. They might sleep as much as 
they pleased after days without sleep. Only those 
who had carried a pack and marched in the thick dust 
and lain under shell fire and bombing from the air 
as they hugged rifle pits and charged machine-gun 
nests and spent the night in digging and putting out 
barbed wire, can realize the fullness and the sweet- 
ness of being free-limbed in hospital pyjamas, with 
nothing to do except to play a gan;^ of cards, or 
read the papers, or write to a girl they know at 
home; or realize the pride, the clear, patriotic con- 
science, of the wounded man who has fought bravely. 

Of course it was written that the one thing that 



278 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the wounded wanted to do was to return to the 
front. They were pictured as being restrained from 
jumping up from their cots and rushing out to meet 
a barrage. The wounded are so pictured in all hos- 
pital accounts. It is the thing to write and for the 
wounded to say; and wounded men have a way of 
saying what they think you desire them to say — 
especially to kind nurses. 

Much depends in this respect upon what is meant 
by the word " want." In my interpretation of it, 
very few soldiers ztant to go back into battle, not 
even in an army as young to war as ours was. They 
want to go home to the life of their family and 
friends. They would not be human if they took any 
other view. Yet, offer them the alternative of going 
home or of remaining until they have won the war, 
and that is putting the matter in another light. They 
had come to France to do a certain piece of work. 
It was a bloody, dusty, sweaty, unclean, disagreeable 
one and they proposed to finish it, which is really 
more credit to their intelligence and character and a 
surer guarantee of victory than to have them longing 
to charge machine guns as if it were a sport. Their 
knowledge of the nature of the war partly accounted 
for the fact that later when fresh troops were sud- 
denly thrown into murderous fire, they were not 
demoralized by it as new troops are supposed to be. 
They knew what was coming. I speak both of 
ofiicers and of men, who are of the same intrinsic 
nature. 

We are a people given to discounting futures; and 
the average American soldier, to put it bluntly, dis- 
counted being killed in action. If our allies, whose 



WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 279 

fortitude was sustained in a dark hour by the way 
that our men fought, could have probed what was 
in the mind of these Americans, they would have 
found still further reason for faith in our military 
strength. 



XXII 



DIVISIONS WITH THE ENGLISH 

The great June disembarkation of our troops — The first of the 
National Army divisions — Truly a " melting-pot " division — 
Everyone had a warm place in his heart for the Seventy- 
seventh — The National Guard divisions of New York and 
Pennsylvania arrive — Also the " Wildcat " division — Regi- 
ments of tall men who could shoot and fight — The moun- 
taineers and the pill-box — The Illinois and New Jersey 
divisions with the British — The Second Corps of two hundred 
and seventy thousand men with the British — What Britain 
stands for — Relations between Briton and Yankee — And be- 
tween the Scotch, Canadians, Australians and the Yankee 
— On the British front. 

By this time the A. E. F. was not only feeling the 
impulse of the mighty spirit and power of the nation 
at home behind us, but the living force of the divi- 
sions from the training camps arriving in the course 
of the great June troop movement. There was a 
new light in the eyes of every American in France; 
that of the confidence of rapidly increasing numbers. 
The pins which showed the location of each unit 
were pricking new holes in the map at G. H. Q. 
every day. Memory no longer kept track of the 
Identity of the divisions which were already in 
France or on the sea. 

A division was just another division except, if 
we 'retrogress a little to the period when the plans of 
the Abbeville agreement were first coming into 
fruition, that we all had a thrill with the news that 

280 



DIVISIONS WITH THE ENGLISH 281 

a National Army d'vision, the Seventy-seventh 
'(305th-3oSth regiments) from New York City, was 
in France. Everyone wanted a glimpse of the Sev- 
enty-seventh, not only because it was National i\rmy 
but because it was truly a " melting-pot " division. 
Our British cousins could hardly recognize in its 
'•anks the consanguinity expected in a division from a 
(Guntry speaking the same language, and they were 
to find that some of the men of the Seventy-seventh 
Jid not speak English except in a broken fashion. 
The size of the men, too, was a surprise, considering 
that they came from overseas. The little fellows 
from the tenements of the East Side hardly meas- 
ured up to the physical standards set by the native 
Australians and the Canadians. 

There was no division which included a greater 
variety of occupations — all there were in New York 
City. If you wanted a garment worker, a printer, a 
sign painter, a gunsmith, a wheelwright, a metal 
worker, a plumber, a cobbler, an artist, a poet, a cook 
who could do French pastry or corned beef and cab- 
bage, a valet, a waiter or a butler, why, you had 
only to call on the Seventy-seventh. The one fea- 
ture in which it was weak was in men who knew how 
to care for horses. Subway guards, lace-makers, 
cigar-makers and store clerks did not take to animal 
transport without a lot of training. 

Everybody in the A. E. F. had an affection for the 
Seventy-seventh without ever having seen a single 
man of the division. The Seventy-seventh expressed 
I national idea. We wanted to see those little 
fellows from the tenements, who were bunking along 
'with the sons from the apartments and the houses 



282 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

uptown, make a fine showing. If they did, it would 
be the proof of the national idea carried into prac- 
tice. With all their training, their physique was 
against them in carrying their heavy packs and dig- 
ging trenches and enduring the inconceivable strain 
of battle action, which would make success all the 
more to their credit. At least, they ought not to be 
alarmed by shell fire after having survived New 
York traffic. England, too, had her httle factory 
hands and cockneys, who were the product of their 
environment no less than the men of the Thirty-fifth 
(i37th-i40th regiments), former National Guard 
from Kansas and Missouri, under command of 
Major General William M. Wright, who were of 
the Canadian and Australian standard of height and 
chest measure. We knew what to expect from the 
Middle West, where fresh air and good food build 
up physique from childhood. These men had the 
basic strength of body, the pride of State and of 
self, which will always tell on the battlefield. You 
took them for granted. And wasn't Missouri Gen- 
eral Pershing's own State? 

The Twenty-seventh (i05th-io8th regiments) 
former National Guard from New York State, 
under Major General John J. O'Ryan, had men 
from my own county and town where I lived as a 
boy. How were they doing? Local pride was 
touched. Who has not some battalion in the army 
which he holds in the affection of a home guard? 
The men from the hills of western New York, par- 
ticularly in the neighborhood of the watershed of 
Chautauqua which sends the rains in one direction to 
the Gulf and in the other to the St. Lawrence, 



DIVISIONS WITH THE ENGLISH 283 

were bound to fight well. I had, too, an interest 
in the Twenty-eighth, formerly National Guard of 
Pennsylvania, as I was born in Pennsylvania such 
a long time ago that the sons of some of the boys 
of my time were soldiers now. The Twenty-seventh 
and Twenty-eighth were among the National Guard 
divisions which had taken their work very seriously 
before the war and which had been supported by 
their States, with the result that they thought that 
they were entitled to be as early in France as the 
Twenty-sixth. We shall hear much of the Twenty- 
eighth, which arrived before the Twenty-seventh, 
when we come to the fighting in the Marne salient. 
The division which should have been most at home 
racially with the British was the Thirtieth ,( 1 17th- 
I20th regiments), commanded Tiy Major General 
Edward M. Lewis, which came from the mountains 
of North and South Carolina and Tennessee. 
Ninety-five per cent of the men were pure Anglo- 
Saxon. No division is so truly American, if gen- 
erations of ancestry on our soil counts for being 
American. There was no difficulty in finding men 
who knew horses or mules or corn-planting in their 
ranks; but if you sought tailors, electricians, lace- 
makers, butlers, brass workers or card-index experts, 
you had come to the wrong market. Tall and lean 
and corn fed — isn't that the proper phrase to use 
about them? When the King of England came to 
the British front they marshaled a company of the 
tallest as an example of American manhood, with 
impressive results. Could any country furnish a 
greater contrast than they made with the Seventy- 
seventh? And who would ever have thought two 



284 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

years previously that both would be particlpathig in 
this great excursion party to Europe? 

You might depend upon it that the men of the 
Thirtieth could shoot, for hunting game had not died 
out in their home country. In their day some of 
them had had feuds; now, they had a common feud 
against the Huns. Silent and polite men, used to 
solitudes, thinking definitely and simply in old-fash- 
ioned terms of life and death, they were touched 
with the crusade spirit from their very origin more 
sentimentally and more intensely than dwellers in 
cities. Their interest in their surroundings centered 
in the crops and the farming in the flat country of 
the Ypres salient, which was a strange place for 
mountaineers to find themselves. They belonged in 
the Vosges for atmosphere's sake. Some of their 
words were Shakespearean and classic from inheri- 
tance, just as many words which the French Cana- 
dians use belong to the time of Moliere, although I 
am not sure that " tote " is in this category. It 
sounded particularly applicable to carrying a pack. 

The aeroplanes, whose hum the men of the Thir- 
tieth heard overhead in the darkness, they named 
" night riders." I think that the concluding lines of 
a letter which one mountaineer wrote home deserve 
mention as a gem of sententiousness: " I must close 
now, mother. I've got to go out to kill a Hun. 
With love to father, Joe." It was the concrete 
purpose of his mission and of all our soldiers' mis- 
sions in France, and he did not favor the involutions 
of the literary style of the late Henry James in ap- 
proaching the delicate subject. 

The mountaineers had a natural eye for ground. 



DIVISIONS WITH THE ENGLISH 285 

and as they were used to being at large on the land- 
scape, they took naturally to patrols. The incident 
of the pill-box, as it was told to me, was in keeping 
with their character. The machine gun in the pill- 
box across a wheat field in No Man's Land was very 
irritating to them the first time that they were in the 
trenches. An officer crawled out in the wheat field 
and studied the habits of the Germans day and night, 
then set forth with ten men on his enterprise, only 
to decide that two men would be enough and to send 
the rest back. He had found that the gunners were 
off guard every day at noon, evidently taking their 
luncheon. The three mountaineers sprang out of 
the wheat, rushed the pill-box at noon and threw 
bombs in at the entrance and through the firing 
aperture with perfectly satisfactory results. One 
never returned, but thereafter they heard nothing 
from the pill-box. 

In all, ten divisions were to be trained with the 
British, including the Fourth, regular (47th, 39th, 
58th and 59th regiments), under command of Major 
General John L. Hines, The Thirty-third (129th- 
132nd regiments). National Guard, from Illinois 
under command of Major General George Bell, Jr., 
had a battalion in the front line when the British 
counter-attack of August 8th began; and our men 
went ahead with their comrades, the Australians, 
taking machine-gun nests and prisoners and demon- 
strating that Illinois did not require months of trench 
warfare in order to develop a spirit of initiative 
when Illinois had brought initiative with them from 
home. I saw a battalion of the Seventy-eighth, Na- 
tional Army (309th-3i2th regiments), from New 



^X 



286 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

Jersey, with replacements from western New York 
and Pennsylvania, known as the Lightning Division, 
under command of Major General James H. 
McRae, marching up to the trenches. They went 
singing " Keep down your head, you dirty Hun," 
with a spirit in keeping with their soldierly appear- 
ance. Some of the men from the Jersey water front 
were not of the fashionable height of the Thirtieth, 
but they were keeping up with others who were. The 
Eightieth (3i7th-320th regiments), also National 
Army, which was the Blue Ridge Division under 
Major General Adelbert Cronkhite, had something 
of the quality of the Thirtieth in lean and muscular 
bodies that are bred out of doors. These National 
Army divisions had a common character which 
seemed singularly national; and something about 
them carried the suggestion that now that they had 
arrived the United States was really In France. 

We had organized Second Corps headquarters 
in the British area under command of Major Gen- 
eral George W. Read, with officers who knew the 
French system of training and now were seeing the 
British system applied, their purpose being, of course, 
to connect up the two in an organization which would 
make the most of American characteristics. Some of 
these officers began broadening their a! s after a time, 
quite unconsciously, and some were taking to after- 
noon tea, also unconsciously, perhaps. They were 
not using as many gestures as our officers who were 
with the French. Indeed, thanks to a common lan- 
guage, a good deal of energy was saved in this 
respect by training with the British, if you were to 
add up the sum for 270,000 men. All our equip- 



DIVISIONS WITH THE ENGLISH 287 

ment, including rifles in place of our own which were 
stored, being British, we were quite essentially a part 
of the British army for the time being. Our divi- 
sions, which had been inculcated in the principles of 
trench warfare by Allied tutors in the camps at home, 
arrived to find that tactics had changed as the result 
of the March offensive, while General Pershing's 
message home in August, 19 17, advocating open 
warfare drills, revealed him as a true prophet to 
the latest forces to come under his command. 

The training with the British was in three phases: 
First, each division went through a period of instruc- 
tion from a British division assigned to it. Then we 
went into the trenches, first with our men alternating 
individually with the British, then alternating by pla- 
toons and finally by battalions. The third would be 
such an experience as the destiny of battle provided. 
With the Fourth, the Twenty-eighth and the Seventy- 
seventh it was to be the Marne offensive, although it 
might have been the emergency which was mentioned 
in the Abbeville agreement, had there been another 
great German offensive against the British lines. 
The places where we were " to die in our tracks " 
were assigned to our different divisions as soon 
as they entered Phase B, in the elaborate support- 
line trenches which ran in deep traverses across the 
land for the whole length of the British front. The 
maps which German aviators made of these, show- 
ing firm and clear on the background of the fields, 
must have been enlightening to Ludendorff in con- 
sidering the feasibility of driving the British army 
into the sea. 

Recurring to the Influences on morale, so strik- 



288 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

ingly exhibited in our part in the resistance to the 
German Marne offensive, the sight of our troops 
behind the British Hnes meant more to the Briton in 
April, when the British were reorganizing from the 
terrific experience in the last days of March, and in 
May and June, when they were expecting another 
offensive, than an unemotional people could express. 
All the English-speaking world had its soldiers 
in that area where British tenacity had saved the 
channel ports from giving Germany an Atlantic base. 
It was Britain which, early in the war, had reserves 
of capital and men; which gave of her money with 
the prodigality of her wealth and her stake in the 
war to the other Allies, trying to hold up Russia, 
sending coal and iron to Italy, nursing the little 
Allied nations, maintaining her forces in India, scat- 
tering her troops far and wide and holding the seas. 
When Britain counted her dead in nearly a million, 
when her gold had flowed abroad requiring that she 
must become a borrower, we camp to play something 
of the part she had played as the banker of men 
and funds, energy and resources. Greeks, Poles, 
Italians, Hungarians, Bohemians, Jews were among 
our numbers fighting for the principles which had 
kept the British Isles an asylum for exiles. Britain 
might stand for an inheritance of blood to only a 
portion of us, but she did stand for a certain heritage 
throughout the world, if we c\ "; . ' ^a-^d, that was 
r.hove race to all of us. There were Irish, too, in 
cur divisions, more men of Irish descent by far in the 
American army than in the British — which is some- 
thing to think about.^^ We had no Irish or Italian 
or Scotch, not even a German question at home. 



DIVISIONS WITH THE ENGLISH 289 

We were as different from the British as climate, 
association and the melting-pot were bound to make 
us. For a Frenchman we would make allowances 
for differences in habits and customs, as we expected 
them to be different; but speaking the same lan- 
guage, the American and the Englishman sometimes 
take it for granted that we should be alike, and a 
ready medium for exchanging ideas only confirms 
the superficial differences. A man from Iowa might 
wonder why anybody who spoke the English lan- 
guage should have a Cockney accent or that of the 
miner from Cornwall; and the man of Whitechapel 
or Cornwall might wonder how any man could have 
the Iowa accent. How on earth could English sol- 
diers, speaking our language, take tea for breakfast 
instead of coffee, and tea in the afternoon, and eat 
such quantities of cheese? 

We are emotional and quick and most articulate; 
the Englishman is sentimental, phlegmatic and inar- 
ticulate. With the Englishman a certain amount of 
controversial " grousing," as he calls it, is a mental 
stimulus or pastime. The English privates, no less 
than the French, did not miss their opportunity of 
impressing our tenderfeet with a veteran's wisdom; 
and the way it expressed itself at the British front 
was characteristic of English humor. According to 
British soldier talk to our soldiers the Germans had 
about done for them. They told harrowing tales of 
retreat and might say very soberly that the thing to 
do when you saw the German coming was to run and 
then you might escape. The Yank was informed 
that if he did not have his head taken off by a shell 
when he went into the trenches he would be gassed. 



290 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

The thing was to keep your helmet and your gas 
mask on and your legs free. In fact, this war had 
gone about far enough. Everybody was all in. And 
the longer the Yank listened to him the more the 
Englishman piled on the agony. 

" All the matter with you is you've got cold feet ! " 
the American who had come across the Atlantic to 
take Berlin might say; and the Briton might reply: 
" This is spring. You wait until winter. The shells 
bury you in the mud, which is like ice." If the 
American replied, "Come off! You can't get my 
goat! " there might be an end of the gloom, which 
the Englishman was secretly enjoying, after the 
phrase was interpreted; and the Englishman might 
say, grinningly : "You'll do, Yank." A good deal 
of interpreting of slang phrases was required. As 
one of our men said: " It's at the British front that 
you do need an interpreter. At the French front you 
gesture." 

When the Englishman begins talking about being 
" all in " and magnifying the fighting qualities of the 
German it is a healthy sign. It means that he is 
awake to the situation. When he takes the contrary 
view and seems perfectly satisfied with his prowess 
he is in more danger of being caught napping. The 
careless way that the English had of speaking of 
their work deceived us a little at first; but later we 
learned that although an Englishman may not have 
our versatility, he knows his own job thoroughly. 
Our men admired the way the British looked after 
horses and kept up their transport and their guns, 
and liked their cleanliness and their reality when we 
came to know them better. After we had been in the 



;/ DIVISIONS WITH THE ENGLISH 291 

Frenches with them and realized what they endured, 
we appreciated their stubborn and unyielding char- 
acter. 

The Canadians, who live only across the border 
from us, seemed like ourselves. Oversea cosmopoli- 
fanism put us immediately in touch with the Aus- 
tralasians, the true cosmopolitans among the Allies 
being the overseas troops. They have traveled. As 
for the Scotch, our men called them " sisters." We 
got on well with the Scotch. The burr of the man in 
kilts held every American soldier under a spell. 

We learned much and saw much with the British. 
Whether or not the British learned anything new 
about the Yanks, which changed their previously con- 
ceived notions about us, is for them to say. They 
were surely surprised a little at our discipline. No 
European quite expected discipline of Americans; or 
that we had a general of Pershing's type on the list 
of our little regular army. 

Our divisions which trained with the British had 
an experience which they will prize in the future as 
thev recollect their European tour. Some of them 
had gPimpses 0/ England itself, and they like rural 
England particularly. They saw the Irish Sea and 
the British Channel, too. They were to know the 
British army as well as the French army; and it is 
the British front which gives you the most confined, 
the most concrete impression of war. 

As a spectacle of shell-torn earth, calling up 
memories of hideous, concentrated strife, Verdun is 
perhaps still the classic example; but the Ypres 
salient gives the true impression of the ceaseless mill 
of war with no relief of the spectacular to the eye. 



292 AMERICA IX FRANCE 

Where back of the line from north ot Amiens to 
the Swiss border an hour or less than an hour takes 
you away from the external evidences of war, and 
the roads seem to stretch without end into a peaceful, 
thriving land, all the roads running back from the 
British front speak war clear to the crowded bases 
where the men and material of war are arriving. 
You are never quite away from the ambulances and 
the transport. 

For four years the British had been imposing the 
machinery of war and the structures of war. building 
roads and railroads, upon that stretch between the 
battle line and the sea. A Channel crossing on a 
crowded leave boat only emphasized the same effect. 
The fighting ground for the defense of the Channel 
had grown much narrower since the March oftensive. 
Amiens, the largest town in the British area, was 
deserted and under shell fire. Abbeville was con- 
gested beyond description, and the great main high- 
way from Abbeville to Fruges had a continuous pro- 
cession of traffic. On every hand there was cease- 
less labor in preparing defenses. Those who know 
the British were not surprised that Ludendorff found 
these defenses too strong to attack, or at the results 
of the British oftensive of August and September. 



XXIII 



OUR ARMY TRAVELS 

Railroad trains everywhere full of Americans — Moving a circus 
a small affair compared to moving a division — Entraining 
a division — ^Business of conducting war is not all fighting — 
Varied accomplishments of a good lieutenant — Swearing of 
no use in modern armies — Loading kitchens and machine guns 
on flat cars — Departure of a troop train — Streams of young, 
vigorous AmeritHin life flowing through France. 

It happened that I was In the British sector when 
four of the divisions which had trained there were 
moving south. Two were tobecome a part of the 
new Paris group of American divisions ready for the 
defense of Paris and two were on their way to Al- 
sace. We were surely a traveling army, our newly 
arrived divisions on the move from the ports and 
our older ones being switched back and forth as occa-' 
sion demanded. 

Whenever you saw a train stopping at a crossing 
you were surprised if there were not Americans on 
board, swinging their legs from the bottoms of box 
cars and sticking their heads out of windows. If 
they were fresh from home they very likely might 
be in campaign hats, which looked as odd to us now 
as the overseas caps to them. They were wide-eyed 
with curiosity at everything they saw. Their essays 
in French had the primer book stiffness and diffi- 
dence which made their enunciation indistinct even 

293 



294 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

when they had a vocabulary and a passable accent. 
If they had been long in France their journey was an 
old story. They called out to the people in collo- 
quial French, learned by ear, with linguistic confi- 
dence; and the people laughed and talked back. If 
veterans met tenderfeet at a railroad station or any- 
where else, why, veterans had their turn at " kid- 
ding " tenderfeet, but without the same effect as 
when persiflage came from the French and the 
British. You need not be as polite in talking to your 
own people as to Allies. 

One day, when a trainload of Americans was pass- 
ing a crossing, there was a yell from one of the sol- 
diers standing by the gate and another from a man 
on the train. I heard shouts exchanged about father 
and Joe and Anna before I saw a brown face that 
was leaning out of a box car disappear around a 
curve. The two were brothers who had not met for 
a year. One was on his way to the Woevre and the 
other to Chateau-Thierry. They might not meet 
again for a year; and again, within a month they 
might be charging in regiments side by side. 

When a division moved by train, all the twenty- 
seven thousand men, their rolling kitchens, their 
machine-gun carts, their water carts, their supply 
wagons, the artillery and its caissons and its horses 
must go on a series of trains and they must be 
fed on the way; and when they detrain they must be 
marched off as a complete unit into action or to 
their billets. I remember being impressed by an 
article in a magazine about the system of moving a 
circus from town to town by trains. A circus is 
a small affair compared to an American division; 



OUR ARMY TRAVELS 295 

but the French had been moving French divisions 
for three years and it is no more nor less than mov- 
ing any other kind of traffic. French divisions were 
always going from quiet sectors to battle sectors 
and back again to quiet sectors. The French, who 
seem rather unsystematic from the lack of type- 
writers and card-index systems, are really most sys- 
tematic, and accomplish order in their own way with 
their bordereaux and neat chirography in place of 
typewriting. 

French military trains are uniform in composition, 
with thirty box cars and seventeen flat cars and one 
officers' coach and two cabooses, with the flat cars 
in the middle of the train. Given the number of 
trains of this kind required for a division and the 
right of way, and the rest is as simple as any other 
standardized operation. Entraining and detraining 
must become automatic, too, from experience, as it 
became with us after a while and promptly, con- 
sidering that we were in a strange land and that the 
officers of each division had to proceed on written 
instructions until they had learned details which were 
second nature to officers of a veteran French division. 

I have in mind a picture of the entraining of a 
division which serves to describe one of the most 
common of army operations in France. It is in the 
late afternoon before entraining begins, and all the 
division is still in its billets scattered over an area of 
six or seven square miles. There are the dozen 
pages of schedule sent out from division headquarters 
to show at what hour every unit is to move and 
where it will entrain. One officer for every village 
which we are to occupy as our new billets has gone 



296 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

on a day ahead, in order that the unit occupying each 
village shall find its quarters already assigned when 
it arrives, which may be in the dead of night. 

An entraining officer, detailed for each unit, must 
see that each unit is properly entrained and go with 
the last train carrying the unit. He must make a 
note of any damages to the train, such as broken 
doors or missing lanterns, in order that we may not 
be charged by the French government for break- 
age for which we are not responsible. This busi- 
ness of conducting war away from home is not all 
fighting. Any good lieutenant must be able to make 
a map, lead a charge, carry out endless inspections 
and be an accountant, a diplomatist, a disciplinarian, 
and never appear perplexed or the worse for wear. 

Water carts must be filled, forage for the horses 
and wood for making coffee in the rolling kitchens 
must be provided; any sick must be evacuated before 
entraining, the local billeting requisitions signed and 
complaints of damage to property in the village 
looked after before departure; and twenty-four hours 
after detraining the name of every officer and man 
missing must be reported. For all the twenty-seven 
thousand men must be checked off. Some may miss 
the train. Soldiers have even been known to fall 
off the train, and to run out to buy a box of cigarettes 
when a train stopped and to return to find the train 
gone, leaving them stranded somewhere in France — 
i which meant classification as casuals. 

It would be easy to go into further details, as the 
regimental commander will tell you. His baggage 
packed, he is ready to say good-by to the house he 
has occupied for two nights as his home. He is as 



OUR ARMY TRAVELS 297 

used to change of quarters as commercial travelers 
are to changing hotels; and he has eaten and slept 
under the patronage of family portraits of grand- 
father and grandmother and the later generations, 
done in oil in old chateaux and in crayons in a farm- 
house. One of his battalions is marching past the 
house on its way to the station and he looks out of 
the window lovingly at these, his men, whom he 
trains and leads. There is no love that man bears 
man which is like that of a colonel for his men, 
except that of a major for his battalion, a captain 
for his company and a lieutenant for his platoon. 
I have seen major generals slip away from the pres- 
sure of staff work for the relief and inspiration of 
watching their soldiers march past. 

The colonel and his regiment are off into a new 
country. They do not know the town where they 
will stop or what they will do when they come 
to the town. He has plenty of time to catch up with 
his men and remains in his billet cleaning up " paper 
work." It is near midnight when he arrives at the 
station. Every important French station has a mili- 
tary platform along one of the sidings in the yards. 
It is flush with the car bottoms. If it were not, the 
loading of one military train would require the time 
that it now takes to load a score of trains and a 
great deal more than fifty times the language; for 
a whole division entrains with less language of the 
lightning variety than I have heard exploited by the 
old army teamsters in negotiating one slough with 
the regimental transport. That kind of thing, al- 
though it gives a picturesque atmosphere to narra- 
tives, is no longer in good form.j Swearing may be 



298 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

useful in small armies, but it has proved of no assist- 
ance to large armies in modern war. 

One train is ready to depart and awaits the whis- 
tle. A sergeant who is still on the platform goes 
up to the Y. M. C. A. man who has established him- 
self in a booth with chocolate and cigarettes for sale 
and asks, " Have you got a hatchet 1 can use for a 
minute? " That Y. M. C. A. man, who had been a 
college professor, says gently and politely, " No, I 
haven't a hatchet." The sergeant loolvs disappointed 
and even surprised. To his thinking, the " Y " was 
missing a bet in not having hatchets. The whistle 
blows and the sergeant jumps on board; and after 
that loaded train has gone, an empty one comes 
puffing in out of the darkness of the yards. Its 
passengers and freight are already on the platform. 
The horses are unhitched from the rolling kitchens, 
unharnessed and put in the box cars. After a few 
such experiences they make no protest. They become 
as used to entering box cars as stables and probably 
appreciate the rest v/hich the journey means. 

" Now, everybody hang his equipment on the 
fence and take off his blouse and roll up his sleeves," 
says a sergeant to his men. 

" Roll your sleeves high enough and maybe you'll 
be a corporal," one man remarks. 

" Anything might happen if I get ambitious," is 
the response. They are all cheery. They have 
learned the soldier spirit. 

Sleeves rolled up, they pull down the sidings of 
the flat cars and begin pushing the kitchens on board. 
This is a process which is also carefully indicated in 
written instructions. One after another the kitchens 



OUR ARMY TRAVELS 299 

are navigated to their places. They will make coffee 
en route for the men, if the men do not get it at the 
coffee stations, and they will start cooking as soon as 
they are detrained, while they follow along the line 
of march. Or, it may be that it is the machine-gun 
carts that are to be loaded. The led horses of the 
machine-gun carts and the men who lead them, ap- 
pearing now as dark silhouettes in the moonlight, 
always have the same attitude as if man and horse 
were of a piece; the man used to the stride of lead- 
ing, the horse to being led. The gunners do not keep 
step when they follow along with their carts on the 
march. Their attitude is characteristic of an inde- 
pendent and mobile force at call, such as that of naval 
destroyers or the cavalry. 

" We are the machine gunners," they seem to say. 
" We are coming along. Never mind playing your 
marching music for us. You'll want us, and we'll be 
there with our pepper boxes." 

Or, it may be that it is the artillery which comes 
rolling up on the military platform with its manner 
of wheeled and mounted regality. The 75's are al- 
most as easily put on board as the rolling kitchens, 
when gunners have learned the trick; and gunners are 
supposed to learn all tricks that concern wheels and 
horses. The 155's require more manipulation and 
more effort. 

All the cars are loaded; the men have been counted 
off in groups as the allotment to each car is assigned; 
all the sidings of the flat cars are up and fast. Every 
man has a cooked ration and two days' travel ra- 
tions. The officers, too, are in the passenger coach, 
where they intertwine legs with their baggage as they 



300 AMERICA IN FRANCli 

stretch for the night. Two rows ot horses' heads 
face each other in box cars, with their drivers oc- 
cupying the intervening space. Upon the floors of 
the cars, which are altogether occupied by liuman 
passengers, the men have settled themselves. An 
occasional remark is heard above the hum of their 
talk. The smoke stacks of the rolling kitchens and 
the big guns lifting up their muzzles rise above the 
array of wheels on the flat cars. The whistle blows 
and another train moves out, and thus trains con- 
tinue moving out from the entraining stations — usu- 
ally there is more than one — until all the division has 
departed. 

Each train seems to start with a kind of protest; 
and the note of the French engine and of the French 
cars with their light bodies and wheels is a baritone, 
I should say. compared to the roaring bass of our 
great trains at home. Speed is not a part of the 
plan, but system anci dependability are most essen- 
tial. There are stops at stations and on sidings and 
In tunnels and always time to count the telegraph 
poles, even the fence posts if there were many in 
France. On board trains our men wind in among 
the green heights of the spurs of the Alps, beside 
swift, whirling streams, along the banks of the Seine 
and the Marne, across the plains, all up and down 
France, seeing the streets of some villages close at 
hand and other villages as blots of red roofs in the 
distance; and oft the trains, in scattered detachments, 
our men form communities, or, marching here and 
there, they are as streams of a young, vigorous lite 
flowing through France to the battle line. 



XXIV 



BUSY DAYS iOR THE C.-IxN'-C. 

Strenuous times caring for a million rnen — Difficulties of handling 
an untrained army three thousand miles away from home — 
Ability of General Per<:hing — His daily working hours from 
7 A.M. tfl midnight — A general who looked like a general to 
his men — His aides — A dynamo of energy — A keen judge of 
men — Rarely overlooked or forgot anything — Never admitted 
impossibilities nor allowed pessimism — ".Make it brief" — The 
" Pershing mentality " — A new sort of Americanism. 

We had a million men in France. Where in the 
early days of the expedition we had been secretive 
about our numbers lest their publication discourage 
the Allies and encourage the Central Pov/crs, Wash- 
ington might now announce the round, ear-filling 
totals for the edification of Berlin as well as of 
Paris and London. If the million had been con- 
centrated in one area, the problem of caring for 
them would have been gigantic enough. With fight- 
ing divisions scattered along the battle line, and di- 
visions in training scattered back of the line, G.-4 
of the General Staff and the S. O. S., which had to 
follow up divisions with supplies wherever they went, 
had little time to spare for reading light novels. 

General Pershing, who had urged the sending of 
the million and still another and yet another million, 
in order the sooner to end the struggle, welcomed 
each addition to his family, while he was undaunted 
by the new burdens which they and the command in 

301 



302 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the field of his trained forces actively engaged 
brought to his leadership. Other Allied commanders 
directed old and fully trained integral armies oper- 
ating on familiar ground. They were in as im- 
mediate touch with their governments as General 
Pershing would be if his headquarters were only a 
few hours' distant from Washington by automobile. 
His isolation from home made his position unique 
In its manifold requirements. He had to iron out 
many wrinkles of controversy. Conferences with 
premiers as well as with generals called for his 
counsel; for it would be ridiculous to conceal the fact 
that when several great nations are in alliance, dif- 
ferences of conception in policy, if not innate differ- 
ence In national interests, require negotiations in 
effecting understandings and harmony of action on 
many subjects. 

Our general must see his troops, too, the newly 
arrived divisions as well as the divisions which were 
fighting. His insistence upon going under fire was a 
part with his desire for a close view of the work of 
his commanders and their troops. Officers who knew 
that there was something wrong with an organiza- 
tion and yet hesitated to Impart their view to him, 
were amazed to find how soon he diagnosed the 
situation after a few minutes of personal observa- 
tion. His long experience as a general officer, the 
thoroughness of his training as a soldier and his keen 
understanding of human nature were applied to those 
essentials which are immutable whether an army 
numbers ten thousand or a million men. 

Even a fast automobile flying over the gQod roads 
of France cannot entirely eliminate time and dis- 



BUSY DAYS FOR THE C.-IN-C. 303 

tance. The amount of traveling and the amount of 
work he was able to do were amazing. The drive 
that he gave the A. E. F. was largely due to his 
own example of industry. From seven in the morn- 
ing until after midnight, with the exception of his 
mealtimes, he was unceasing in his application. Yet 
he never seemed to be hurried, he never showed the 
signs of war fatigue which brought down many 
strong men. In any event, we were always certain, 
too, that the man at the top was keeping his head; 
and one took it for granted that his recreation must 
be in his occasional horseback rides and walks, and 
his time for reflection while he sat silently with his 
aide-de-camp in his long motor rides. 

That is, he was never hurried, unless after a hard 
day in the office, he was away to the troops, when 
the eagerness for departure possessed him in a 
fashion that made him as young in spirit as when 
he was a lieutenant of cavalry. The soldiers knew 
that he was their general. He looked as a com- 
mander-in-chief ought to look, to their way of think- 
ing; and this means a great deal to the men who bear 
the burden of pack and rifle and the brunt of battle. 

As the pressure from his scattered and growing 
forces increased, no one person saw much of him 
except the members of his immediate personal staff 
and the indefatigable aide-de-camp who was always 
with h"im. In the early days he had foreseen the 
demands which would require the delegation of 
authority in the future. With the aid of Major 
General Harbord, his first Chief of Staff, he had 
built a m'achine which would automatically expand to 
meet the requirements of the miUion and the two mil- 



304 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

lion men who were to come while he was left free to 
direct his army in action. Major General William 
McAndrew, who had established and directed the 
system of schools which were to be the guide of our 
army's tactics, came to take General Harbord's place 
as the general manager of the unprecedented organi- 
zation; while General Harbord, after his command 
of a brigade and then of a division in the field, was 
given the task of commanding the S. O. S., which, 
with its giant problem of supplying the millions with 
their food and all that they needed for the spring 
offensive, was the second most responsible post in 
France. 

Wherever the C.-in-C. went he always carried his 
book of graphics which kept him informed up to 
date of the exact numbers and stations of all our 
troops and the state of shipping and supplies, al- 
though his memory seemed to have these facts in 
call. Couriers overtook him at the day's end, wher- 
ever he was, with papers which required his decision; 
the telephone could reach him if something vital re- 
quired immediate attention. 

" The C.-in-C. 's here," the word was passed 
around when he returned to Headquarters from one 
of his trips. Well-known signs attested his presence. 
The only car with four stars on the windshield was 
in front of the main entrance to Headquarters; an 
orderly was at the little table in the hall beside the 
door wTiich bore the name " General Pershing," 
and there were waiting major generals and brigadier 
generals in the anteroom. 

But we also knew of the C.-in-C. 'i> presence by 
something electric that ran through all the offices; 



BUSY DAYS FOR THE C.-IN-C. 305 

the vitalizing impulse of the commander. " Another 
hectic day," as the Chief of Staff would say in the 
evening after the General's return. The General 
went about France distributing hectic days. A few 
words from him might set a chief of section a task 
that would start him on the rush for personnel and 
material to carry out some plan that would have 
looked enormous even to a celebrated captain of 
industry, or he might have his proposition turned 
down. Each chief of section came to the C.-in-C. 
with important papers to be signed; each chief was 
supposed to know the subjects which interested him 
at the time as they affected the general policy which 
the C.-in-C. had in mind. Sometimes he reached 
down through the channels of administration and 
took up a seemingly small problem which only he 
thought vital until later events proved its signifi- 
cance. It was he who said, " Stop ! " or " Full speed 
ahead!" 

There was enlightenment in studying the faces 
that came out of that office of offices of the A. E. F. 
The personal element was not missing. With " make 
good " the test for everyone, with ambition driving 
everyone tathe utmost endeavor, with the desire for 
power and for approval always besieging the straight 
figure at the desk between two windows, who had 
the authority, which military concentration requires, 
of making and unmaking careers, he had only one 
thpught, he could have only one, and that was to 
find the best agents to carry out his plans, by tests 
and by processes of elimination. He was deciding 
on more than^the matter in hand; he was keeping 
watch of the human element. Was this subordinate 



3o6 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

getting stale? Was he beginning to show nerves? 
Was he becoming greedy of authority for authority's 
sake? 

A section or a departmental head might emerge 
from the office thinking, " The General does not 
understand. I couldn't get any action out of 
him at all. Talked about it and decided nothing, 
when " To this officer's mind the fate of na- 
tions depended upon the immediate adoption of his 
suggestion. At the next session he might emerge 
thinking, " J. J. P. was quick on the trigger to-day. 
Approved everything! Now we fly! " 

There were things that could wait, some things 
that if they waited would care for themselves, and 
other things that required instant action and more 
of it on a larger scale than the proposals had 
suggested. The man who had all the reins in his 
hand, all information at his command, alone knew 
where he was going and what he needed in order 
to reach his goal. When he intimated that he 
wanted a thing done and someone in the channels 
of administration, while not insubordinate, had a 
different view, reenforced by the thought that prob- 
ably the busy C.-in-C. had forgotten his instructions, 
a telephone call might bring an officer in front of 

his desk to answer the question, " What about ? 

It hasn't been done yet." 

To men working in compartments, who forgot that 
he had the key of inquiry into all compartments, it 
was surprising how much the C.-in-C. knew and 
sometimes how he managed to know it; so very sur- 
prising that it became embarrassing for certain of- 
ficers. Subordinate chiefs might explain difficulties 



BUSY DAYS FOR THE C.-IN-C. 307 

to him, but they learned to beware of saying that 
a thing " can't be done." He would not admit that 
anything could not be done. They learned, too, that 
they must not bring any air of pessimism into his 
office, where his own supply of vitality for communi- 
cation to others seemed inexhaustible. 

Who at Headquarters and among the chiefs in the 
field has not seen his penciled notes with the bold 
initials " J, J. P." attached to papers? Subordinates 
who wrote the same kind of slips often had scrawl- 
ing, illegible penmanship; his was as clear and firm 
as block letters, in keeping with the firm and chiseled 
lines of his features. He practiced his own text of 
*' Make it brief," in whatever he had to say. 

" Cut this down and we'll make it an order." — 
"A good idea! Have X. make a memorandum on 
it." — " Wait a while ! " — " This reads well in theory, 
but It will not work out in practice." — " Go ahead ! " 
— " Tell H. I want to see him to-morrow about 
this! " — " That will carry us on for the present." — 
" Use your judgment and plenty of it, quick! " " J. 
J. P." under the legible script, never hurried, never 
careless, was no less an order than " By Command 
of General Pershing " in full, official form. 

Aside from the letters and orders dictated to his 
big, silent stenographer, who had been with him in 
Mexico, he wrote many by hand. When he had 
something of vital importance affecting policy he 
would often write that out by hand, too, and correct 
it and have it copied and correct it again, until it 
satisfied him. A cablegram to Washington did not 
need his signature for the reader to know that it 
was written by him. It was that of a man who 



3o8 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

knew what he wanted to say and said it very surely 
and distinctly. Subordinate chiefs found, too, that 
he was not afraid to recognize his own mistalces, 
which possibly was one of the reasons why he kept 
growing with the growth of his task. 

" You were right in that suggestion," he would 
say, or again, " I went ahead too strong on that." 
Again, a chief might be called into the office and 
hear something like this, " I was thinking last 

night " and the C.-in-C. would state his idea, 

saying, " Think it over yourself and tell me how 
that strikes you." But always he was C.-in-C. 
Subordinates must not mistake orders for sugges- 
tions or suggestions for orders. The thing which 
held their loyalty with stronger bonds than those 
of his interest in men was that spontaneous human 
quality, lighted by the smile of interest in every 
man and breaking out in a laughing sally when 
something caught his sense of humor. The French 
spoke of the " Pershing mentality," which meant 
coming direct to the essentials of the subject in hand. 

He took an interest in all the chaplains and the 
welfare workers, and in everything that pertained 
to the care of the soldiers. Subordinates each saw 
only one professional side of him; and, of course, 
the supreme side was the soldier preparing his army 
for action and directing it in action. Those who 
wondered about his reason for some decision sud- 
denly grasped it when they understood that he was 
looking out across the country, away from the red 
tape of organization, which he had cut ren\orse- 
lessly, past the headquarters of commanders high 
and low to the men who were fighting, whose cour- 



BUSY DAYS FOR THE C.-IN-C. 309 

age, morale and skill were the vital human and mili- 
tary element. 

A great army formed of recruits was under his 
personal influence. Before soldiers had been long 
in France they developed in their bearing and in the 
straight, level way that they met your glance that 
spirit which says, " I fight to win. I shall win ! " 
and with that spirit a smile, a philosophic acceptance 
of what comes their way, an upstanding pride — a 
new sort of Americanism; that of the determination 
and enterprise of the individualism of the youth who 
means to get on in the world, and of the aimlessness 
of the youth who stands at the street corners with 
his hands in his pockets, amalgamated by discipline 
and example into a common purpose and character 
which would bring a nation into a new era. 

Had our General done no more than train the 
army and built jn organization for its direction, his 
place in history would be quite secure, without regard 
to how he was to use the weapon which he had 
forged and tempered and sharpened. 



XXV 



RESOLUTE STONEWALLING 

Another German offensive in preparation — Three hundred thou- 
sand of our men near the Marne — The Rainbow Division 
again — Getting ready for the German onrush — The Germans 
as the irresistible movement, the Rainbows as the immovable 
object — The Germans stopped in their tracks in Champagne, 
and the Rainbows helped to do it — The bulldog tenacity of 
four companies of the Twenty-eighth Division — The Third 
Division at the Marne — A division that learned how to fight 
by fighting — The Germans cross the Marne — Our artillery 
makes the crossing difficult — A slaughter of boatloads of 
Germans by American riflemen — A railroad track that the 
Germans never crossed — The marvel of the 38th Regiment's 
defense — A German attack that was smashed. 

As the days passed, with the Marne battle front 
stabilized, the daily intelligence reports of the Ger- 
man order of battle showed the increasing concen- 
tration of divisions for another offensive stroke. 
New ammunition dumps were appearing in front of 
the British and also in Champagne. The Germans 
might strike in either direction or in both. 

This time they did not take the French by surprise. 
Several days before the attack all information indi- 
cated that it would be directed against the Allied 
line from east of Rheims to the region of Chateau- 
Thierry. On July 13th I heard quite definitely that 
the blow would come on July 15th, and this was cor- 
rect. Units of American divisions were now to face 
the full power of the German army in an attack. 
Experts, who had not questioned our vigor in offen- 

310 



RESOLUTE STONEWALLING 311 

sive action, might wonder if we were yet hardened 
enough to withstand such an infernal artillery prepa- 
ration and to repulse such masses of infantry under 
its support as had broken through Allied trench sys- 
tems on March 21st and May 27th. 

The part that we were to play, in sheer weight of 
numbers, during the fourth German offensive and 
in the counter-offensive which followed was signifi- 
cant of our growing power. Without counting 
freshly arrived divisions or divisions in reserve which 
could be summoned for emergency, we had on July 
15th over three hundred thousand men either in 
sectors on the Marne front or in immediate support. 
The German had tested at Cantigny and Vaux and 
in Belleau Wood the mettle of our trained divisions; 
he was now to test the mettle of some which we did 
not regard as trained. His information gained about 
us at first hand upon July 15th must have forever 
dissipated his dream of forcing such a break in the 
Allied front that our numbers would be beaten in 
detail, owing to the want of cohesion and training in 
the arriving American divisions which were not yet 
organized as an army. 

On July 15th, the Forty-second Division was in 
Champagne, near Perthes, with four and a half bat- 
talions in an intermediate position. The name of 
Perthes summons up recollections of the first two 
years of the war when it had been the synonym of 
bitter and continued fighting. All the region was 
battle scarred; it was associated with some memory 
of severe trench experiences in the minds of French 
veterans. 

The Forty-second was not long out of the Baccarat 



312 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

sector, where It maintained such a mastery over the 
enemy as became the Rainbow Division. Its artil- 
lery was well trained; its organization running 
smoothly; its esprit de corps unsurpassed. There 
was nothing a comparatively quiet sector, — aroused 
to activity by American initiative, — could afford 
which it had not endured, including heavy gassing 
and intense artillery preparations for enemy raids; 
but that is a different thing from having concentrated 
within a few hours more casualties than it had suf- 
fered in two months at Baccarat. The French Staff 
had looked the Forty-second over and believed in it 
enough to issue an order that if the enemy broke 
through in the Perthes sector, Major General Men- 
oher of the Forty-second was to take command of 
both French and American infantry and artillery 
in the sector. Practically, then, the final defense 
would be with us, and we might consider for our 
edification the fact that each of the four German 
offensives had overwhelmed nearly all the front-line 
positions attacked. There is responsibility for you, 
Iowa, Ohio, New York, Alabama, California, Illi- 
nois, Maryland and all the other states represented 
in the Forty-second. 

The Frankenstein of German prestige did not in 
the slightest depress the Rainbows. There had come 
to them the opportunity to play their part as the 
British and French played it In the first battle of 
Ypres, when there were no gas shells and artillery 
concentrations were comparatively mild. Have your 
gas masks ready. Every man in his place whether in 
a dugout or on the death watch — and let the Ger- 
mans come ! 



RESOLUTE STONEWALLING 313 

Our Forty-second had taken its resolution. It was 
going to stick. It must, being the Forty-second. The 
men had reasoned out the situation, too. If they fell 
back, why it would be just as bad to be taken from 
behind by machine guns and shells as it would be to 
face them. This was a " dig-in " affair; and they dug 
hard and strengthened their parapets. It should 
never be said that the Rainbow Division had been 
routed. The dramatic element of time suspense, 
which men know before they go over the top, was 
in this instance that of waiting for the bomb that 
was sizzling at your feet to burst. 

The German artillery preparation was thorough 
and deep. Every village in the back area, every 
cross roads and every road leading to the front were 
shelled. The Germans had not been gathering am- 
munition for weeks and working out their elaborate 
plans of attack with a view of neglecting any pos- 
sible detail of destruction and interdiction. They 
were particularly prodigal with heavy shells which 
break in trench walls and dugouts. Paths and woods 
as well as battery positions were saturated with gas. 
German aeroplanes swept low, dropping bombs and 
raking roads with machine-gun fire. The orbit of 
every man's mind under this terrific shower of pro- 
jectiles carried the one thought of doing what he was 
told until he was hit. 

German confidence was set against our resolution. 
The Germans thought of themselves as the irresist- 
ible movement. We thought of ourselves as the im- 
movable object. What the Germans had done they 
had good reason to think that they would do again. 
They must! There were their orders and their 



314 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

marching schedule after their break through, which 
required them to be in Epernay and Chalons at 
given hours. 

Only they did not know the difference between 
-May 27th and July 15th. This time the Allies were 
. ready for them; the enemy did not have the " jump " 
on us. We answered German artillery blasts with 
our artillery blasts. Our 75's were drumming out 
barrages into their advancing infantry. Our 155's 
were pounding their batteries, their roads, their sup- 
ports. The hell on the morning of July 15th raged 
more fiercely than that of May 27th, because it was 
not one-sided. The Germans, filled with the idea of 
their invincibility, were repulsed only to come on 
again and again. Following their elastic system, the 
French fell back in places; and we, in our inter- 
mediate position, became no longer intermediate. 
One of our battalions broke six successive counter- 
attacks with steady rifle and machine-gun fire. Other 
companies were sent forward to assist those already 
engaged until we had five and a half companies 
where no brave man could be spared. Two of 
our companies and two French companies went 
over the top together against the Germans, driv- 
ing them back on their reserves and scotching 
their initiative. Our guns had the satisfaction 
of firing pointblank at another time into the 
German infantry and artillery. The only point 
where the enemy ever penetrated our positions was 
in some woods into which he filtered his machine- 
gun units, but he did not reach our second line. 
.When we had looked after other more pressing 
affairs we turned the attention of our guns and 



RESOLUTE STONEWALLING 315 

machine guns to this quarter with the desired 
results. 

What news ! The Germans had been stopped in 
Champagne; and the Forty-second had helped the 
French in the achievement. Throughout the whole 
business, so far as I could learn, there was no flinch- 
ing on the part of our men. Wounded artillerymen 
in their gas masks continued serving their guns; in- 
fantrymen, knocked down and bruised by shells, 
picked up their rifles again and continued firing. 
The busy ambulances went and came from their 
stations mindless of shell fire. Everybody seemed to 
have done his part in that grimmest and most trying 
of all battle experiences, in making a wall of human 
flesh and will against waves of an attacking infantry 
supported by all the storms of death that modern 
projectiles can offer. 

The Forty-second had been on the left flank of 
the German attack. Americans were also engaged 
on the right on the Marne, where the Germans had 
maintained their lodgment across the river below 
Dormans. The outposts facing them on the morning 
of July 15th in that wooded and hilly region were 
four companies of the Twenty-eighth Division, which 
had had as yet no battle experience except that of 
Phase B with the British. German artillery prepa- 
ration was no less thorough here than it was to the 
eastward. Troops in the outpost position of the 
men of the Twenty-eighth who were under French 
direction, are scarcely expected to hold under the 
bombardment which precedes the advance of infantry 
in a great offensive effort. They were only a hand- 
ful, but they made a fight of it. They used their 



3i6 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

rifles as best they could. Buffeted by shells, swept 
by enfilade machine-gun fire, some of them awaited 
their fate as they kept on firing; others, surrounded, 
cut their way out and took their wounded pickaback 
to prevent them from falling into German hands; 
others were left on the field wounded and dead; and 
a few were taken prisoners. They were not strong 
enough to stop the waves of Germans in their per- 
sistent advance; but their tenacity slackened and 
weakened the attack as a terrier dog may harass 
and delay a bull in a charge. Nothing more dra- 
matic had happened in the annals of the A. E. F. 
thus far than the experience of these four companies. 

The nature of what they had passed through was 
written on the faces of the survivors. When they 
fell back on the other units of the Twenty-eighth — 
which were waiting in the sector in support of the 
French under continuous shell fire to meet an emer- 
gency which never occurred — they brought no tales 
of an irresistible enemy, but one of confidence in 
themselves as soldier to soldier against the German 
now that they had met him. Their conduct in- 
spirited the Twenty-eighth Division with the desire 
to meet the enemy on equal terms and pay him back 
in kind. One survivor standing erect with spatters 
of blood on his blouse, which had been ripped by a 
shell fragment, while his helmet had been dented by 
another fragment, said: 

" There wasn't anybody left alive around me. I 
looked to the right and there were Germans; and 
to the left, and there were Germans. They had 
been slipping up through the woods and gullies. 
Well, I crawled back through a wheat field to a farm- 



RESOLUTE STONEWALLING 317 

house. There was a woods back of that which 
made my getaway sure. Nobody was at home. 
Dawn was just breaking, and 1 went upstairs and 
looked out of the window and I saw some Germans 
working their way across the field in their green 
sunbonnet helmets. I had a shot at them. Then I 
waited for them to get up after they dropped to 
cover. And I got another shot. Well, I finished 
up my ammunition before I beat it, and they began 
shelling the farmhouse before I left. I guess they 
must have taken me for a platoon." 

However, it is the Third Division, whose motor- 
ized machine-gun battalion had arrived in the nick 
of time to hold the bridge at Chateau-Thierry in the 
May offensive, which had the most to do with for- 
ever associating the river Marne with the history of 
our army. I may mention again how the Third had 
been hurried to the Marne without its artillery, after 
it was under orders to go into a quiet sector for its 
first tour in the trenches; how brief had been its 
period of training in France. Now its units, which 
had been interspersed with the French to meet im- 
mediate demands early in June, and also the regi- 
ments which had been sent across the river where 
we held both banks west of Chateau-Thierry, had 
been returned to the fold, and General Dickman had 
his division intact under his own command. Mean- 
while, it had had an experience, which no service in 
an average trench sector could approximate, in all 
kinds of mobile work which developed responsibility 
and adaptability in the officers and submitted the 
men to a variety of tests which made them war-wise. 

Some strangers had just joined the division. The 



3i8 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

welcome which these newcomers in khaki and " tin 
hats," on jogging caissons and gun carriages, re- 
ceived was that due to long-lost brothers. They were 
strangers in the sense that this was the first time 
that they had been with their division. The artil- 
lery of the veteran First, Second, Twenty-sixth and 
Forty-second which had learned team play through 
months of progressive education, were living integral 
parts of divisional organisms. Fresh from its train- 
ing ground, the artillery of the Third which had 
not yet fired any shots in anger, was called to sup- 
port the infantry of the Third against the German 
ioftensive under peculiarly difficult tactical conditions. 
As a unit of the Third how could its artillery expect 
anything else! The Third was preeminently the di- 
vision that was sent into action instead of the class- 
room to complete its education. It was self-educated 
in the school of battle. It learned how to fight by 
fighting, which it did very successfully, not in con- 
tradiction of the value of education, but in proof 
of how thorough had been the groundwork of our 
training-camp system. 

The last battery of the Third's artillery to arrive 
was on the road just as the preparatory bombard- 
ment for the offensive was beginning. One of its 
guns was damaged by a shell before it could go 
into action. To have their piece put out of com- 
mission when they were about to use it for the first 
time on anything except practice targets, and this at 
the outset of a critical battle, was about as hard luck 
as could possibly happen to any gunners after months 
of training. It made the other gunners feel that 
they already had a personal score to settle with the 



RESOLUTE STONEWALLING 319 

German. Even if they were strangers, they felt 
perfectly at home. They had their maps, and they 
only needed local instructions as to the points where 
they were to drop the shells, artillery fire being 
standardized and scientific. Besides, as novices, they 
had the advantage of receiving the more praise and 
a warmer welcome due to the acute demand for 
their presence. Two days later the artillery of the 
Third was veteran and accepted into full and affec- 
tionate membership by all hands. 

Our outposts on July 14th covered the river banks 
In the neighborhood of the village of Mezy. In the 
adventurous business of sending patrols across the 
river at night in the preceding weeks, our men had 
had experiences much to the taste of adventurous 
young lieutenants and young soldiers. Crossings 
were prevented by enemy machine-gun fire on some 
occasions; again the scouts went some distance be- 
yond the other bank, both without finding any Ger- 
mans and with sharp personal encounters in the dark 
which yielded prisoners and information. 

The Marne is not more than fifty yards across 
above Chateau-Thierry and the current is not rapid. 
Hills on both sides form the valley walls which slope 
down irregularly to the narrow stretches of alluvial 
bottoms. The railroad to Epernay follows the 
river's course. There is a bend in the river at Dor- 
mans, along the south bank where the Germans 
made their first crossing and one that amounts to 
a loop around the south bank east of Mezy. To the 
west of Mezy the river bears sharply south in a 
winding course which gives an advantage to an enemy 
who would effect a crossing from the north bank. 



^a2 



ami: RICA IN FRANCE 



Naturally, the (icnnan wmiUl choose tor his cross- 
ing points which would enable him to pinch any 
troops we had in the bends and to act eOectuallv tor 
tlankino; purposes in cooperation with his troops al- 
ready established on the south bank across 1 roni Hor- 
nians. 

The crossing; in torce nuist require particularlv 
thorough and systematic artillery preparation; and 
the enemy's plans were characteristically elaborate 
and characteristically contident. lie began his bom- 
bardment at midnight, lie was prodigal of large 
calibers; he used prodigious quantities of gas in 
certain areas. Within ten minutes he had cut most 
of the communications with diA'ision lieadquarters; 
and soon all units were dependent upon wireless 
signals and runners for sending reports and orders. 

This situation was not peculiar to the occasion; 
but common in the midst of resistance to a great 
attack. A general may not always know the exact 
position of his own pieces, let alone those of the 
enemy. By the time that the order which he sends 
as the result oi a report arrives the situation may 
have entirely changed. Accurate observations in 
the darkness lighted by flashes from the shells is 
ditlicult, and even when gained the runner who car- 
lies the message and the runner who follows with it 
in duplicate may be killed. Runners in gas masks 
cannot usually find their way through gas saturated 
woods; and if they take ofl their masks thev arc 
gassed, rhe good news of an attack repulsed may 
not have reached headquarters before another attack 
has broken through. 

Therefore, unit commanders nuist act upon gen- 



RESOLUTE ST0XI':WALL1XG 321 

cral instructions ; and as the smaller the unit the closer 
its commander is to the enemy, the more intimately 
and murderously difficult his problem. 1 Ic in turn is 
dependent upon his men. He can impose his will 
upon them while his superiors impose their will upon 
him only to a certain extent. Discipline, courage, cool- 
ness, initiative and thoroughness of training are the 
final factors in the test of results. Such a situation, 
one may repeat, is one of the objects of thorough 
artillery preparation which aims at the same time 
that it produces confusion in control, to kill all rifle 
and machine-gun fire in front. Orders, it is well to 
bear in mind, were to hold our positions of resistance 
at any cost. We shall see what happened. 

1 he railroad which follows the course of the river 
passes through Mczy at a distance of from seventy- 
five to six hundred yards from the river. Our patrols 
covered the river bank at night and were withdrawn 
at dawn to their day positions. The Surmelin river 
empties into the Marne, where it curves sharply in- 
ward, to the east of iMezy; and the Le Rocq plateau, 
commanding the valley of the Surmelin, was the 
objective of the German attack. If he gained con- 
trol of the valley the way was open for him to 
Montmirail and to the Montmirail-Meaux-Paris 
main highway. 

7 he regiment which held this Mezy-Surmelin 
sector was to immortalize itself by a classic example 
of coolness, courage and tenacity. Its skill and care 
in the disposition of its forces in conjunction with 
the machine guns, in anticipation of the attack, made 
its remarkable defense possible. The bombardment 
which began at midnight was, of course, particu- 



322 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

larly concentrated upon the forward positions. 
After three hours of barrage the Germans covered 
the river with a thick smoke screen as a cover for 
their crossing. 

Already, our artillery had interfered with Ger- 
man plans. It had concentrated on the valleys and 
ravines which the Germans would probably use to 
approach the river from the north bank. This, of 
course, was the obvious thing to do. The point is 
that the results were singularly effective. Units 
marching in close order, and units assembled, await- 
ing the word to march, were caught in a furious 
storm which cut holes in the boats they were carry- 
ing and caused many casualties. A prisoner, who 
told of this interference with the schedule, said that 
it was a tragic surprise for the German troops who 
had been assured that they would cross the Marne 
with little opposition. Other shells burst in boats 
already afloat and left their passengers who were 
not killed to swim ashore. This reduction of the 
enemy's numbers was most fortunate as the Third 
Division had quite enough to do in dealing with the 
Germans who effected a crossing. 

Our men realized the meaning of the smoke screen 
and also the intensified bombardment of their posi- 
tions, which accompanied it with a view to keeping 
them to the cover of their rifle pits. They were too 
keen on getting a chance at a target not to expose 
themselves in the midst of the bursting shells. The 
place to stop the Germans was on the river. They 
were tacticians enough to appreciate this; and 
the preoccupation of the marksman possessed them. 
The smoke screen was thin enough in places to re- 



RESOLUTE STONEWALLING 323 

veal masses of the crossing parties on the surface of 
the Marne. In the bend of the Marne at the mouth 
of the Surmelin not a German was able to land. 
Packed together, twenty men to a boat, the results at 
close range can be imagined. Boats capsized as dead 
and wounded men dropped over the gunwales, and 
survivors jumped overboard to save their lives into 
the water which was whipped by rifle and machine- 
gun fire. 

It is estimated that In all twenty boats were sunk 
or sent drifting harmlessly down the stream; and 
all this because men who had been taught how to 
shoot, as General Pershing had insisted, had such 
confidence in their rifles that they exposed them- 
selves contrary to German expectations. If they 
had not, their losses would have been the greater. 
According to the German notions, they ought to have 
hugged their rifle pits and surrendered when superior 
numbers, supported by the rolling barrage which was 
to precede the Germans after they had landed, 
charged them. By the time the barrage came, as 
our men had no charge to repel, they could take 
cover. The liaison of the Tenth and Thirty-sixth 
German divisions was the road running along the 
Surmelin river to the Surmelin valley; and, thus, 
this episode had broken the flanks of two divisions 
and their liaison. 

Of course, other boat loads were crossing at the 
same time up and down the river; and the Germans 
were also building a light floating bridge from which 
our marksmen tumbled numbers into the water. Just 
to the east of Mezy, where the bend of the Marne 
makes the distance from the river to the railroad 



324 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

track greater than at the mouth of the Surmelin, 
one of our platoons in the midst of shell fire and 
machine-gun fire fought to the death to prevent 
the landing. The 6th German Grenadiers, once 
they were on shore, charged toward the railroad 
track past Mezy. They met the second platoon on 
the railroad track, whose steel rails were the this-far- 
and-no-farther line of our resistance. There are no 
German graves on the south side of the railroad em- 
bankment. All there are American. There are 
many German graves in the north side, and scat- 
tered thick about the fields. 

The platoon on the railroad track, under shell, 
machine-gun and minenwerfer fire, shot into the 
German masses, and then, the survivors welcomed 
close quarters which meant an end of everything but 
personal combat. It was bayonet and grenade, man 
to man, or, rather, one American against two or 
three Germans. The Americans were not going to 
yield that track alive; there is the simple fact of it. 

A third platoon came to their assistance at a criti- 
cal moment when those who were alive must soon 
succumb. The reenforcements took up the fight 
over the bodies of the dead while the wounded who 
could use a rifle or a grenade continued in action. 
The men of the second platoon, the report tells us, 
were all killed except three who were wounded; and 
half of those of the third were down before they had 
driven the Germans off the embankment. A fourth 
platoon then appeared, prepared to counter-attack. 
Upon its advance the Germans, who had fought 
out all their courage, may well have concluded 
that there was no limit to American reenforce- 



RESOLUTE STONEWALLING 325 

merits or audacity, and they threw up their hands 
and cried " Kamerad ! " There they were with 
the river at their back; and they knew by this tinie 
that their line on their left did not exist. 7"he 
Germans who were to form their flank had never 
been able to land. Instead, our company on our 
right of the frontal attack, which had prevented a 
crossing on its front, was now giving those who had 
crossed and charged the embankment a withering 
cross fire. We actually took over four hundred 
prisoners between the railroad and the river, or 
nearly the equivalent of the total number of our 
two companies who gathered them in. In fact, the 
6th German Grenadiers regiment was annihilated. 
There could be no better illustration Cyf what courage 
and the offensive spirit will accomplish against Ger- 
man first-line troops. As for our men in the village of 
Mezy, they were of the same mettle. The Germans 
entered the village but could not budge us. Our men 
there were firing at the Germans in three directions 
at one time, without considering that retreat was in 
order; and they assisted in the annihilation of the 
6th German Grenadiers. 

Meanwhile this little battle had been proceeding 
in an area which the Germans were gradually sur- 
rounding by their infiltrating tactics. Where the 
Marne bends southward, west of Mezy, the Germans 
had effected their landing on a line to the rear of the 
railroad track which we were stubbornly holding. 
They swung in to the support of their broken line 
from Mezy past the mouth of the Surmelin. At 
the same time other Germans were swinging in from 
the east, where the troops in that sector had with- 



326 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

drawn. The colonel of our regiment, which held 
the Surmelin valley entrance, had foreseen this, and 
he had dug trenches on his right flank and kept a 
company in battle formation every night to cover 
it, which was fortunate prevision. The Germans 
of the 5th Grenadier Regiment and the 147th 
Infantry, pressing forward in this direction, met 
the raking rifle fire and machine-gun fire from 
the trench which shattered their charge. Then 
our company counter-attacked the remnants and 
drove them back to Varennes road, thus disposing of 
their interference. On the other flank, the Germans 
reached Fossoy two miles to the southeast of Mezy. 
Immediately, the captain of the company, which had 
suffered such severe casualties on the railroad track, 
saw their deployment, he gathered the company 
cooks, the company clerk, his orderly and runners 
and other troops to the number of forty-two all told 
and helped beat off the attack. 

Do you want any further explanation of why the 
Germans never reached the Surmelin valley? Or, 
why the German command never saw the signals it 
awaited announcing that its troops were well on 
their way to Montmirail by noon of July 15th in 
keeping with their schedule? 

Colonel McAlexander of the 38th Infantry 
Regiment had orders to hold his positions, and he 
held his positions. If his men had broken they 
would have been surrounded and our whole sys- 
tem of defense would have been threatened. 
The marvel of the accomplishment of our 38th 
Regiment can be appreciated only by one who realizes 
the difficulty of securing information about what is 



RESOLUTE STONEWALLING 327 

happening in the thick of battle and making your 
disposition fit emergencies. We acted upon the prin- 
ciple that if the Germans had us in flank we also had 
them in flank when we faced about and attacked 
them. But the deciding factor was the unflinching 
courage of our men and their aggressive spirit. This 
action is worthy of attention as exhibiting about all 
the requirements in ofl'icers and men that go to make 
military efficiency. It is a military classic. 

Third Division headquarters might well have or- 
dered a retreat to a second line of defense, and it 
might have received compliments for a skillful with- 
drawal in face of an overpowering attack; but it 
was confident that our artillery had worked havoc 
upon the enemy's bridges, boats and landing parties. 
It had faith in that regiment at the mouth of the 
valley and it had messages brought by runners 
through barrages that proved that its faith was well 
grounded. 

I quote one written at 7: 25 by the captain of a 
machine-gun company. There is no sign of stampede 
in face of the German army in his report. He was 
fighting as he was expected to fight and writing 
the kind of message, which by the criterion of 
his training, he was expected to write in a desperate 
situation. He starts out by saying that " the situa- 
tion up here is improving; the infantry is still hold- 
ing the line of the railroad," although " our right " 
has been " left in the air," and then continues: 

" Have sent three guns on top of hill from spare 
guns. Captain Butler has sent four guns over. 
Understand infantry supports are going up to them. 
Men are doing fine. Have not heard from Lt. 



328 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

Barber and his two forward guns. It is reported 
that he is captured. Rest of guns still lighting. The 
two forward guns at the bridge doing deadly work. 
Lt. McGuften killed and Lt. Russell badly wounded. 
Captain Berri and Lt. Milligan of Co. C were 
killed. Have had about ten casualties among men. 
Captain Butler had two guns knocked out. Will 
advise you again as situation clears." 

We were prepared for the method of German at- 
tack. At every point we had met his shrewd infiltra- 
tion tactics with the proper response of accurate 
shooting and seizing the advantage of closing in on 
his advancing units as they moved forward. Other 
units of the division, which had not the dramatic 
opportunity of the 38th Regiment, carried out 
headquarters' plans by facing the enemy in clever 
tactical maneuvers, and with cries of " Let them 
come!" held their ground. It was gratifying 
to know that America had done her part in con- 
junction with the French, the British and the Italian 
forces which were engaged on July 15th; and the 
report of our taking over six hundred prisoners from 
the German attacking forces as we beat them back 
was not the least pleasant item of the commumquc 
which brought to an apprehensive world the \yoTd 
that the fifth German offensive was repulsed. 



XXVI 



WE STRIKE BACK 

A defensive that had lasted four months — All hopes centered on 
arriving American divisions — General Pershing insists that it 
is time to prick the German bubble — His plan — Where we 
smashed the cup of victory in the German's face — Our First 
Division is ordered to advance five miles the first day, and 
to keep going — The Second Division arrives after short notice 
but on time — Marshaling the attacking troops in a rainy 
forest at night — Lost in the forest with danger of being late 
for the attack — Some units which had to go over the top out 
of breath from the rush to arrive in time. 

The Allied armies on the Western front had been 
almost as completely on the defensive for four 
months as if we were a besieged garrison. In spirit 
they had been on the defensive since Cambrai in the 
previous autumn. They had made some sorties, it is 
true; but with the single exception of the counter- 
attack on June nth against the German offensive 
toward Compiegne they had made no extensive 
counter-attacks, let alone initial attacks. Although 
time was to justify the wisdom of allowing the 
enemy to become overconfident and to overextend 
himself — when the failure of any counter-offensive 
on our part might have meant the loss of a decisive 
action — the effect of this waiting to receive blows, 
this continual apprehension lest the next blow should 
succeed, this yielding of ground as the tribute paid 
for temporary security, must only confirm us in think- 

329 



330 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

ing in terms of the defensive while their apparent 
successes confirmed the Germans in thinking in terms 
of the offensive. 

After the fourth offensive, which brought the 
enemy within forty miles of Paris, you might hear 
military discussions on whether or not Paris should 
be defended in the event of another German drive 
bringing it under the German guns. The prepara- 
tions which the military authorities of Paris had 
made for any emergency were matters of common 
talk. We were ready to move our own army offices 
from Paris; the Red Cross and the Y. M. C. A. had 
arranged for trucks to remove their workers. Lay 
pessimists saw Paris as already lost; and military 
pessimists saw its military defenses as impracticable 
directly it was seriously threatened. All hopes 
centered on the arriving American divisions. If the 
Allies could stem the tide until August ist, then we 
should outnumber the enemy; and when there were 
enough Americans and they were organized we 
might consider an offensive, which could hardly take 
place before spring. Thus, confidence in eventual vic- 
tory rested entirely upon the Americans; and the 
spirft of initiative in our men was reflected in counsel 
by General Pershing in a manner which was to have 
an important influence in the operations that were 
to recover the offensive for the Allies in a single 
brilliant stroke. 

There could be no firmer advocate of thorough 
training than General Pershing; yet no soldier ever 
believed in swift, hard aggressive blows more in- 
domitably than he. He is not a man of halfway 
measures. Later, when German ofl^cers said that our 



WE STRIKE BACK 331 

army was methodical in preparation and bold in 
action, it was merely an expression of simple, im- 
mutable military principles. The test of command 
is in their application; and, primarily, in the vision 
which sees, through surrounding detail, of when and 
how to apply them. 

Any soldier of any age who looked at the German 
salient after the Marne offensive, could have had 
only one thought, and that was a drive at the base 
of the salient to close the mouth of the pocket. Yet 
one heard talk that salients no longer counted. 
Neither reports of German strength nor the defen- 
sive spirit of the time diverted General Pershing's 
attention from that inviting bulge in the German 
battle hne. When Premier Clemenceau and General 
Foch came to American Headquarters June 22nd 
for a conference, he again pointed to its obvious 
vulnerability, and vigorously advocated an offensive. 
He had faith that the German strength was over- 
estimated; and that under a determined attack the 
salient would crack like an egg shell. 

But where were the troops for the operation? The 
events of the four years of war, which had placed 
such heavy responsibilities upon the French army, 
had made the French thrifty of their man-power. 
Although no sufficient strategic reserve for a counter- 
offensive existed, General Pershing suggested that 
there were divisions in rest which could be mobilized. 
Our untrained divisions could release other French 
divisions from quiet sectors. Our older divisions 
had already proved their mettle. We had others 
v/hich might not be fully trained, but they would 
fight. They knew how to shoot; they had initiative. 



332 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

Behind them were still other American divisions 
rapidly training and others arriving from America. 
The time had come to prick the bubble of the Marne 
salient. It was only a bubble, though it was German. 
Let the veteran French army attack with its old elan 
and the young American army attack by its side with 
the energy of its youth, and we should force the Ger- 
mans to dance to our tune instead of our dancing to 
their tune. 

The result of the German offensive of July 15th 
justified the General's premises and conclusions both 
in the repulse of the enemy and in the way which the 
Third and Fourth divisions and the French and 
British divisions had fought. All the Germans had 
gained was to deepen their pocket. They had put 
the point of their salient over a river in a bloody 
and unsuccessful effort. They were in reaction as 
the result of their failure; we were in reaction 
from our depression. It was the turning-point of 
psychology. Immediate advantage must be taken 
of the opportunity. The Germans had started a war 
of movement; we accepted the challenge at the mo- 
ment that they were trembling and confused from 
the failure of their own initiative. We should not 
take the time for elaborate preparations which would 
reveal our point of attack; we should go in with the 
rush of Manoury's men in September, 19 14, and 
along many of the same roads where he had struck 
von Kluck in flank. 

How far away Manoury and von Kluck seem! 
How long it seems since I saw the French and the 
German dead in the Bois de Retz, where now our 
men were to go over the top; how long since I 



WE STRIKE BACK 333 

went along that Paris-Soissons road to my first real 
view of the French army in action, where now Ameri- 
can guards were to bring back long columns of 
German prisoners ! With this Paris-Soissons road 
I associate the most exhilarating scenes of the war 
— the scenes of the repulse and the pursuit of the 
enemv in his two great efforts to win a decision in 
the West. There, on July i8th, we did not dash 
the cup of victory from his lips — we smashed it into 
splinters in his face. 

General Foch who gave the word for the attack; 
and General Petain who worked out the plans, both 
took General Pershing at his word. The Americans 
were to show how we could fight, with our two 
veteran divisions beside French divisions in the place 
of honor in the drive against the base of the salient 
toward Soissons. Surprise was essential; and this is 
best accomplished by rapidity of movement before 
the enemy's espionage service can communicate its 
information. 

The First Division had been relieved from Can- 
tigny on July 8th. After two months in the Mont- 
didier sector It had a few days' rest in billets In 
the Beauvais neighborhood and again in the neigh- 
borhood of Dammartin on the way toward the 
Marne salient; and had received orders on July 15th 
to proceed to the Soissons sector under the Tenth 
French army — a movement that might have been 
only incidental to a stabilized battle line. On July 
1 6th, the First reported to relieve one brigade of 
the Moroccan Division in front of Couevres. That 
night it scouted Its positions. On the night of the 
17th it went into line. It had moved rapidly, but not 



334 AMERICA 1\ FRANXE 

under the pressure of surticient haste to worry or 
excite anyone in this methodical division, which is 
never sensational even if it has the opportunity to 
be sensational. Its guns were up; everything was 
up. The First was ready. 

When that veteran statt had the information that 
their objective on their tirst day would take them 
some five miles and that they were to keep right on 
going the second day and the third — well, this was 
what the First had been looking forward to for one 
year, two weeks and two days, or ever since it had 
arrived in France. Major General BuUard wished 
that he had not been promoted to command a corps 
until, at least. July iqth. His successor, Major 
General Charles P. Summerall, who had commanded 
the artillery of the First, was a lieutenant after 
General Bulla rd's own heart, as he had been after 
the heart of Captain Reilly on the march to Peking 
some eighteen years ago. Responsibility had de- 
veloped character rapidly in this war; and General 
Summerall is Cromwellian in his downrightness and 
driving initiative and his devout, crusader's faith in 
his cause and his men. 

All officers and soldiers who had been trans- 
ferreci to other divisions as instructors, when they 
heard the news, felt that they had been robbed of 
the supreme emotion of their lives. This was the 
last^ of the firsts for the First; it was simply to 
fight with all its strength, its courage, its speed, 
applving all its experience and all it had learned in 
school. Nothing new could happen to it hereafter 
unless it should be the first division to return home 
after the war. As vou mav have observed, all who 



WE STRIKE BACK 335 

have been in France since the early days have an 
affection for the First, in the name of all that it 
went through, including drilling with the feet of 
some of the men done up in sacking for want of 
new shoes, in the blue print days of the blue print 
stage of the S. O. S. 

On the right of the First was the famous Moroc- 
can Division, including the Foreign Legion, which 
in brilliant action after brilliant action has written 
its name In blood which has turned to the gold of an 
immortal glory in the annals of the French army. 
It is an attack division; and it attacks as the tiger 
attacks, lithe and quick and cunning and fearless. 
Renewed again and again, officer and men recruits 
who take the place of the fallen seem to absorb 
their spirit. On the left of the First was one of 
the best of the regular French divisions. 

Our Second Division (now commanded by Major 
General Harbord in place of Major General Bundy, 
who^ had been given a corps command) was to 
attack on the right of the Moroccans. It was to 
be precipitated into action with all the abruptness 
with which it had been thrown against the German 
offensive on June ist After its exhaustion and its 
severe casualties in a month of continuous fighting, 
which included the taking of Vaux and Belleau 
Wood, it had had two weeks in rest at Montrieul- 
aux-Lions, recuperating and reorganizing and drill- 
ing the replacements who had come to fill the gaps 
made by its dead and wounded and sick. It was 
not yet up to full strength when the order came on 
the night of July i6th for the infantry to embuss 
and for all horse-drawn and motor transport to 



336 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

proceed overland to the region of the Bois de Retz. 
The Second had "got there" once in a hurry; 
and it was given another task in keeping with its 
reputation. It did not know just what was ex- 
pected of it; but French officers were to give its 
commanders further orders at the debussing points. 
Owing to the stress of a rapid concentration and 
the secrecy involved, the infantry units had tire- 
some and exasperating marching and counter- 
marching after debussing. 

Not until 4 P.M. on the afternoon of July 17th, 
with the attack set for 5:35 on the morning of 
the 1 8th, were the plans for the attack drawn up 
and instructions given to the artillery and infantry 
commanders. The infantry was to go over the 
top from the line through the eastern portion of 
the Bois de Retz, an immense thick forest which 
had seen fierce work during the battle of the Marne. 
As fast as detachments arrived they were to be 
hurried into the forest, as pronounced movements in 
the open must be avoided by daylight in order to 
escape aerial observation. When night came all the 
units were not yet assembled. The commanders 
must take them through the forest and put them 
In position before the zero hour for this most im- 
portant and critical action. There are few roads 
in the forest. They were a rumbling jam of pressing 
and varied transport, with the guns and ammunition 
and the machine guns on the front demanding right 
of way. Rain began to fall. This Intensified the 
darkness of the woods under the overhanging tree 
tops. Within the woods a man was not visible at 
a distance of a pace. 



WE STRIKE BACK 337 

Commanding officers had to scout the line in the 
midst of the forest in this inky, drizzHng night. 
Having marl^ed out their sectors, they had to put 
their commands in position in order that their front 
line should attack in proper order and the supports 
and reserves should follow in theirs, which was in 
suggestive contrast with previous experience of hav- 
ing one night for reconnaissance and the next for 
'* going over." Non-commissioned officers were sta- 
tioned along the routes as guides. Troops in thread- 
ing their way past and around that weaving, straining 
mass of transports with its blocks, stumbled into 
sloughs, bumped into wheels and mules and found 
themselves off the road colliding with trees. It was 
a groping blindman's-buff kind of business. Units 
were cut in two by an ammunition caisson or an 
ambulance broken down off the road. The portion 
that was ahead went on; the portion that was 
stopped had to wait. How were lieutenants to keep 
their platoons together, or captains their companies 
together, let alone majors keep their battalions to- 
gether? How were they to follow the instructions 
of the non-commissioned officer guides who were 
themselves confused? 

Regimental commanders at their stations forward 
began hearing all kinds of rumors telling how their 
men were wandering about lost in the woods in small 
groups without even compass direction. At four 
o'clock the battalions which were to lead the attack 
had not appeared. Reports said that they were too 
far in the rear ever to arrive in time. The French 
liaison officers and those commanding the thin line of 
exhausted French troops who were to be relieved 



338 AMERICA IN FRANXE 

were seriously alarmed. It was too late to counter- 
mand the order for the attack. There was danger 
of the Hne, which knew what opposition it might 
encounter in this vital effort, having a fatal gap 
which would compromise the whole movement and 
change any prospect of success into almost certain 
failure — with the Second Division receiving the 
blame. 

The French sent out all their runners as guides; 
regimental commanders themselves as well as aides 
rushed back to hurry our men forward. They dis- 
regarded the identity of a unit or its order of battle 
in their vigorous urging. The situation was none 
the happier because we had to go through a stretch 
of woods in the tirst lap of our advance, which even 
with the most careful preparation, when platoon 
commanders have maps and have scouted the 
ground, is a difficult undertaking. But we must 
'' get there." \Ye must go over the top. 

The rush to catch the last launch out to the 
steamer was nothing compared to the hectic rush in 
that dense forest and dense darkness in the counted 
minutes of that half-hour whose suspense was the 
more harrowing, considering the risk of an under- 
taking in which everything had been subordinated 
to the element of surprise. We had planned to go 
the German one better in open warfare. He had 
always preceded his offensives by artillery prepara- 
tion, which we were now to forego. By past stand- 
ards of elaborate jumping-off trenches, arduous as- 
sembling of material, deliberate plans of infinite de- 
tail, and thorough registering of guns on targets, the 
attack of July iSth should have been annihilated. 



WE STRIKE BACK 339 

But this kind of prevision informed the enemy of 
what he was to expect and where he was to expect it. 
The division artillery which was hurried into posi- 
tion was not to send over a single shell before the 
infantry advanced. Gunners were shown their pro- 
gramme on the maps; and they were to fire by the 
map at 4:35. And the men of the Second "got 
there." When the artillery started its rolling bar- 
rage with a crash at 4: 35, the light of the bursting 
shells illumined the way for some units which had 
come up on the run. They recovered their breath 
as they proceeded " over the top " in the more delib- 
erate pace of the advance. 

And now? Did the enemy know or did he not 
know that we were coming? He must have realized 
that the logical point of attack against his salient was 
toward Soissons, The regimental commanders who 
had started their troops off in such confusion and 
haste after they had been all night on their feet 
might well be fearful of the result; and the feeling 
of relief when these commanders found that their 
commands were keeping up with the commands on 
their flanks, and when prisoners began to appear and 
our walking wounded said that " Everything was 
going fine," had grateful reference to providential 
dispensations which are not taken into account by 
practical soldiers. 



XXVII 



DRIVING TOWARD SOISSONS 

Heroic tanks — The Germans taken completely by surprise — Cham- 
pions of all the Allies — Ihe Frenchman by nature an of- 
fensive soldier — Friendly rivalry of French divisions with 
American divisions — An attack where speed was everything — 
Our first captured guns — A battalion caught in a cave — 
"Forward, the guns!" — Wounded and prisoners — American 
chaff for German captives — Poor specimens of the German 
army — An attack that startled the Cierman Higii Command — 
When night came — Men who ii'<inti\i to go on — The hottest 
action our army had had since the Civil War — A headquarters 
and a dressing station in one house — " Where did you get it, 
Buddy?" — Polish prisoners. 

The brief official reports and the map with broad 
blue lines showing the sectors of our divisions' ad- 
vance are very cold and official compared to the 
vision which personal glimpses of the action of 
July 1 8th and the following days summon of the 
sweep of our men across the plateau toward Sois- 
sons. Broken by ravines and by villages the stretch 
of the plateau was comparatively excellent ground 
for a rapid offensive movement. 

When the sorely hurried Second came out of the 
wood, it found that it was up with the divisions on 
its right and left. The whole line was advancing 
without anv interruption bv the relatively light re- 
sponse of the German guns. Our own rolling bar- 
rage could not be as close protection as usual: for 
our gunners might not " cut it too fine " when they 
had had no registration. Therefore, the Germans 

340 



DRIVING TOWARD SOISSONS 341 

had more time, between the passing of the barrage 
and the arrival of our infantry, to spring out of their 
dugouts and pits and man their machine guns. With 
the accompanying tanks nosing about to look after 
such details, our early progress was little delayed 
by machine-gun nests in bushes or farmhouses. It 
is difficult to think of such creaking, racking, un- 
gainly mechanisms as tanks being heroic; but they 
are as heroic to many an infantryman as any knight 
in armor who ever came to the aid of a foot soldier 
In distress. 

At the end of the first hour all the divisions were 
on the blue line running across the lines of advance 
which was the first objective. Three objectives were 
set for the first day. Others would doubtless be set 
for the next day if these were taken. The great 
thing to the men was that they were not to stop 
here and dig trenches as they had been obliged to do 
In the Cantigny offensive; but were to continue ad- 
vancing until casualties called a halt. 

The soldier who falls from the splinter of a stray 
shell or from a sniper's bullet in mucky trenches 
serves his country equally well as In an attack, only 
there is no evident reward for his sacrifice. Who, 
If he must risk death, would not prefer to risk it 
In a charge when every step taken means the reward 
of ground gained? At the end of that first hour our 
men had their stride. They were feeling the very 
joy, the very exultation of battle, and a confidence 
born of the swiftness of their advance. 

We had taken the Germans completely by sur- 
prise. We had outwitted the German Staff; and 
every French and American soldier with their quick 



342 AMERICA IX FRANXE 

intelligence knew that we had. The German 
trenches were scratches in the earth beside the strong 
defenses on the Somme, in the Ypres salient, or in 
Champagne. They had held to the new system of 
open warfare, evidently convinced that they would 
be soon moving on: or if we attacked, that machine- 
gim nests would soon stay our advance. 

Chips before a tidal wave, the Germans in the 
front line held up their hands in blank astonishment 
and demoralization. Troops in dugouts in the sec- 
ond line who were to rally in support in the elastic 
defensive system were hardly elastic enough on this 
occasion. They were asleep when the earth trem- 
bled and the crackling reports of shells broke in a 
storm on a tranquil summer's morning. On other 
occasions, German soldiers had gone to their posi- 
tions in the midst of a bombardment of high ex- 
plosives and fired through the rolling barrage, taking 
cover when the barrage arrived and rushing out 
again to meet the infantry advancing behind it. But 
here was an attack without any previous artillery 
preparation, which was not according to the rules. 

*' I guess the Hun saw we meant business this 
time," as one of our soldiers remarked. We had 
numbers, and supported by tanks, we moved with a 
svstematic ardor of purpose which must have ap- 
peared most forbidding to an enemy who put his 
head out of a dugout and had to make up his mind 
whether he would be taken prisoner or die in his 
tracks. It is easy to talk about dying in your tracks, 
but hardly appealing when you are wakened out of 
a sound sleep in the chill morning air to resist guns 
and infantry which are perfectly wide-awake. 



DRIVING TOWARD SOISSONS 343 

All Impatience from the months of stalling, all 
the misery of having to keep on the defensive, all 
the longing for the day when we should rush our 
opponent with a rain of blows were in the released 
spring which precipitated us into the attack. Youth- 
ful skill of America and veteran skill of France 
would not be denied. In the old days, opposing 
groups of primitive combatants used to choose 
champions who would decide the issue of battle in 
personal combat. The First and Second divisions 
and the French divisions with whom they fought, 
were in something the same way the champions of 
all the divisions of the Allies from Flanders to the 
Adriatic and of every man, woman and child of the 
Allied countries. Accordingly as these chosen sol- 
diers fought and as they succeeded, the Allied world 
would feel the next day. 

The veteran French were in the kind of action for 
which they are peculiarly fitted. By nature, the 
Frenchman Is an offensive soldier. We all know how 
uneasily the early days of trench warfare sat upon 
his spirit. He had to accommodate himself to it; 
and amazed the world by his fortitude. Movement 
suits his nature. He is fluid and quick in attack. 
There is mercury in him. This drive, without any 
previous artillery preparation was characteristic of 
his natural daring and facility In swift maneuver. 
He was doing the thing which was in his character; 
his old confidence in himself and his method had 
vreturned. 

With the Americans back of him in millions, with 
the Americans fighting at his side, he was no longer 
under the necessity of extreme caution in safeguard- 



I 



344 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

ing his own reserves; he had a bank account which 
permitted the hazard which he loves in battle. We 
brought to him the impulse of our youth. He had 
heard of our pantherish rush, our " punch " and 
our "pep"; and he would give us an example of 
French elan. In the second Marne offensive the 
gleam that was in his eye in the first Marne offensive 
had come flashing back. Should French veterans 
allow the novices from America to outstrip them 
in thefr own peculiar forte? Should our vigor in i4:s 
first great offensive admit that it could not keep up 
with any army on earth? Rivalry of French divi- 
sions with American divisions and between French 
divisions and between American divisions was an- 
other spur to effort in the well-conceived plan of 
the drive toward Soissons, which was to be as bril- 
liant in execution as in conception. 

In all accounts of offensives you read of this or 
that unit being " held up " by machine-gun fire from 
some strong point. Until this is cleared the line on 
either side cannot advance, as it is caught in enfilade. 
The result is that the unit which finds its flanks ex- 
posed as it pushes on when resistance is slight, is 
impatient, and sometimes thinks that the adjoining 
unit is not doing its part. We went forward in the 
usual waves followed by columns, that is, literally 
with one hand up in guard and the other ready to 
strike a quick blow. When a center resistance is 
developed the wave halts, taking what cover it can 
find, while the columns come up to its support in such 
a manner as the situation requires. They may be 
able to take care of the situation immediately with 
the help of rifle grenades; or trench mortars may 



DRIVING TOWARD SOISSONS 345 

have to be brought up; or, in the last event, which 
means delay, an artillery concentration is requested. 
On July 1 8th we had the bit in our teeth. We did 
not bother with too nice details. We charged the 
machine guns because we found that the machine 
gunners in the early stage of the battle yielded; and 
we took the captured machine guns along with us to 
fight duels with other German machine guns. 

Time and speed were everything in making the 
most of the surprise. Every hour we allowed the 
enemy in which to recover his equilibrium and his 
spirit and collect reenforcements meant heavier 
losses later on, if we were too long over a strong 
point. Each battalion, company, or platoon com- 
mander was under the whip of a single purpose; he 
must keep up. His unit must not delay progress. 
Battalion and regimental commanders exposed them- 
selves in the preoccupation of their work. Success 
fed our intrepidity. " Keep pushing while things are 
going our way! " We were bunching hits when the 
pitcher was rattled. We had the " jump," and 
we must keep it. " Shelling out " prisoners from 
their dugouts became a competitive sport. The 
more prisoners you took the more you wanted to 
take. 

I was wrong in saying that the First Division was 
through with its firsts. The First took its first guns 
on July 1 8th. It is captured cannon which ever have 
been the visible, convincing trophies of victory, and 
particularly so since standards are not carried in 
battle. " Through to the guns ! " had really been 
the point of Ludendorff's orders for his offensives. 
We applied his tactics to his own artillery. Perspir- 



346 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

ing, radiant, triumphant, our men found themselves 
in possession of a nest of batteries of German 77-mm. 
and 150-mm. guns, in Missy ravine. These deserted 
pieces, now only so much harmless steel, as well as 
the guns whose surviving gunners surrendered, had 
yielded to the infantry which had borne their hateful 
long-range blows. It was like coming up under the 
long-arm reach of an adversary with an uppercut 
in close-in fighting. 

We gathered in prisoners by ones and twos in 
ditches and in houses, in groups and companies from 
villages and dugouts and in one instance by battalion. 
The first wave of a battalion of the First had gone 
past a stone quarry, knitting its course forward and 
preoccupied with clearing the way. The mopping up 
parties developed some fire from the quarry. They 
soon silenced it and saw Germans rushing into an 
opening which proved to be the mouth of a cave. 
The usual procedure followed. " Will you sur- 
render or be bombed out? " A soldier appeared in 
response to the invitation with a note from the com- 
manding ofl[icer within offering to surrender the gar- 
rison; and some five hundred men were marched out, 
their officers looking very sheepish and the men with 
wondering smiles which sought to placate their cap- 
tors at the same time that they were significantly 
concerned about their fate. Their apprehension soon 
passed. They were not to be massacred by these 
savage Americans, who were grinning at them and 
telling them to move along to the rear. 

The scene across the fields which we had gained 
was hardly new in the war; but it was new to us. 
There had been small reason for concealing our 



DRIVING TOWARD SOISSONS 347 

movements once the attack was begun. The men 
in Front who were mowing their way toward Soissons 
wanted ammunition, ambulances, communications 
and food — everything that an army in movement 
requires. The signal corps people were reeling 
out their wires to keep advancing battalion and regi- 
mental headquarters in touch with division head- 
quarters. To every officer in charge of any kind 
of a train his was the supremely important task of 
the hour. Someone up ahead was relying on him. 
He must be at the front; he wanted to be at the 
front; but no one could deny the right of way to 
the artillery and its caissons and to the ammunition 
trucks. The fighters might go hungry, but they would 
not want for artillery support or for cartridges. 

" Forward, the guns ! " had become once more the 
thrilling watchword of action. No bother about 
keeping the cover of roads or orchards now; never 
mind the camouflage; unlimber in the open, pressing 
close up behind the infantry! Fields back of the 
German lines, which had been tranquil for weeks 
except for the bursting of Allied shells, were still 
dew-moist when the wheels of our 75's ran tracks 
across them, and soon they were thick with 75's in a 
clamoring raucous chorus of blasts. It was the kind 
of thing for which the 75's were intended. The 
delight of the French gunners was as the genius of 
a nation of gunners in full triumphant flame. Ameri- 
cans have snap if they have not elan; and our 
gunners for the first time were knowing the ex- 
hilaration of pursuit with the guns, of urging horses 
forward, of swinging Into position, of every trained 
man nimble and knowing his part, of beginning 



348 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

to fire before the horses were hardly away from the 
guns. 

"We are with you! We'll stick close to you! " 
was the message of the guns to the infantry. 

All the roads from the forest of Retz were de- 
bouching their streams of traffic which broke free 
from the roads where the ground was solid in the 
open. Our walking wounded were coming across 
the fields to the dressing station. They came with 
heads up and something new in their bearing which 
broke into smiles and flashed from the eyes — victory 
in open battle ! The wounded who could not walk 
came in trucks, even on caissons, when there were 
no ambulances. This attack had been so sudden 
and the desire for secrecy so intense in limiting the 
orders to combat troops that in the mixture of Amer- 
icans and French in the same action, there had been 
some misunderstanding about hospitalization, which, 
even more than with the British, is with us important 
to the point of captiousness. There was no room on 
the roads for the ambulances which we had; and the 
minds that had conceived that vital operation held 
that bullets and shells to press the advance to success 
by killing the enemy's fire were the best way to save 
\iives, not alone on that day, but in all the future of 
the war, which was to be influenced by the decision 
of that day. At Saint Mihiel later, when casualties 
were incredibly light, miles of automobiles banked 
along the road never had to move from their places. 
Wounded who waited long in dressing stations, 
who took passage in empty trucks, forgot their pain 
in the common exultation and in sight of the pris- 
oners, who, after coming across the fields in groups, 



DRIVING TOWARD SOISSONS 349 

were mobilized and sent on in gray columns under 
smiling guards. It is the appearance of guards with 
a line of prisoners, or the " breaching " of a dugout 
by a soldier who appears in the doorway with bombs, 
which, as a rule, leads to the stories about one man 
taking anywhere from a score to three score of 
Germans. Of course, one man at the door of a 
dugout with a battalion back of him owns the 
premises and the Germans inside, but we must not 
characterize him as taking a German company single- 
handed. 

There was certainly something appealing and sat- 
isfying in the sight of a hundred soldiers of the 
Kaiser led by an American with a rifle over his 
shoulder, with three or four Americans keeping the 
column in line and one American bringing up the 
rear. If the guard marching ahead happened to be 
a little Italian from the East Side of New York, it 
heightened the effect; and you may be sure that the 
smaller the guard the more blissfully conscious he 
was of the tactical advantage of his position. 

The prisoners, if you excepted the officers and 
the hard-faced Prussian non-commissioned officers, 
seemed disinclined to bring any lugubriousness into 
?. scene of celebration. They actually seemed- to be 
enjoying the " party." It was a novel experience 
for them in more ways than one. No familiar, harsh 
guttural explosive commands directed their move- 
ments. They were signaled to fall in and move 
"long much as a policeman directs traffic. This easy 
and good-natured treatment from our officers and 
non-coms was all the more puzzling, considering that 
we had given them such a fierce shock of surprise, 



350 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

and It added to the wonder of all that they were 
seeing as safe spectators within the lines of their 
enemy. Without their arms, no longer marching 
stiffly, many stoop-shouldered, many of middle age, 
many merely boys, these Indifferent German troops 
aroused your curiosity as to how they could have 
forced the whole world Into the struggle to keep 
them from conquering Europe. The answer Is they 
were out of the machine; and It was the machine that 
made them strong. You were certain that no such 
transition was possible In a captured Frenchman, 
Englishman, or American ! The transport drivers 
and any passing troops all called their greetings to 
the prisoners according to each man's sense of 
humor. 

" Is this the whole German army? " 
" You're on the road to Paris? " 
" What win Kaiser Bill say to you? " 
" Cheer up ! We've only begun ! You'll have 
enough company before we're through with this 
job!" 

" Why, Hans, you don't know how the Kaiser will 
miss you ! " 

The calls were tart, but never Insulting; and fre- 
quently they brought grins from the Germans. Fre- 
quently, too, our calls were In German; for It Is 
surprising how many Americans know a few words 
of German. I have in mind two remarks that I 
heard In the course of the battle. One expressed a 
common thought among our men. " No bunch like 
that can Tick us! " said a stalwart American as he 
looked over a passing column of Germans. The 
other, which has been frequently quoted, was from 



DRIVING TOWARD SOISSONS 351 

a German officer, a hard-fighting professional type 
who had emptied his pistol before being taken. He 
looked over a group of his soldiers, which included 
in the foreground a narrow-chested, studious-looking 
youth in glasses and a short bow-legged man of 
forty-five years. Meanwhile, in the contrast of their 
youthful vigor, a company of our men in reserve 
were moving up to the front. 

" We have old men and boys," he said, " who 
have fought for four years, against your youth which 
is as fresh as we were in the beginning. I'd like to 
have had the men who marched through Belgium 
with me, this morning. It would not have been as 
easy for you. You are too young, too lusty, too 
swift. We can't do It! " 

He spoke judicially; it was a professional opinion 
with the touch of bitterness that after four years of 
fighting, a people whom he had considered wholly 
unmilitary, a democratic mob, had sent soldiers 
across the sea whose dramatic attack had over- 
whelmed his veterans. It was hard for him to be 
philosophical. In his heart he was bitterly shamed. 

From the moment that our artillery had broken 
the morning's silence, German commanders knew 
that a great attack had begun. They probably 
relied upon their troops in front to stay its progress, 
but it came on like the roar of a surf carried for- 
ward by a neap tide of unwonted force and speed. 
Our strategic purpose must have been instantly clear 
to each German headquarters as the wires carried 
the messages on into the presence of Ludendorft, who 
on that day received the word that his confidence 
had overshot itself with the madness that had been 



352 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

provided tor many other gods in history before the 
day of reckoning came. He had dclied military 
principles in the saHent; and after six weeks of wait- 
ing, in which he had been further confirmed in his 
audacity, we had struck back suddenly and over- 
whelmingly at the obvious point. We must be 
stopped; and the pressure from the other side of the 
salient at Rheims must be stopped. The will of the 
High Command must be imposed upon faltering 
units already in position ; machine-gun units rushed 
to their assistance; fresh divisions called for the 
desperate defensive from the reserves mobilized for 
the offensive. 

By 6:30 the Second Division, going with the im- 
petus of its rush over the top, had reached its second 
objective. Bv 9 : 30 it was on the crest overlooking 
the village of Vierzy, a distance of five miles from its 
starting-point. The right of the First was up to its 
second objective after having to pass through some 
dif^cult defenses, and the left was engaged in Missy 
ravine, where it received its first real check. 

AYhen you see this ravine cut into the plain, you 
recognize how nature devised it as a hiding-place 
for artillery and for close-quarters defense by 
bombers, snipers and machine guns, which the Ger- 
mans know how to use to the utmost when courage 
supports their tactical skill. Its mouth was about 
midway of the First's sector of advance, and broad- 
ening and deepening, ran through that of the French 
division on the left flank of the First. Signs of the 
struggle and why it was fierce, though not why its 
result could have been so swift — that was in the 
spirit of the French and the American fighters — 



DRIVING TOWARD SOISSOXS 353 

were visible for weeks afterward. Here, the Ger- 
mans had had time to recover from the surprise that 
had overwhelmed their frontal resistance; here, they 
stiffened and set their teeth and were hurriedly re- 
enforced by units from the rear and by orders that 
gave them no discretion except resistance to the 
death. They were fighting, too, to save thirty guns; 
and they fought bitterly, firing until the gleam of the 
bayonet signaled that they had fought their last fight. 

By 6 P.M. the Second Division had entered but had 
not taken Vierzy, where the Germans had also stif- 
fened, but otherwise it was in possession of its third 
objective. The 2nd Brigade of the First had the 
ravine, which was the line of the second objective, 
but it was held up by machine-gun fire from the 
north and northeast in portions of the ravine still un- 
conquered, and from other strong points in the very 
difficult ground outside of its sector; while the ist 
Brigade, v*hich had open ground, had advanced to 
the third objective with its left flank toward the 
2nd " refused," which required that the 2nd should 
press hard the next morning if the advance were 
continued. 7hert was no doubt that it would be 
continued. General Mangin was the army com- 
mander. He believed in the attack. This colonial 
soldier, with five wound stripes won in colonial wars, 
before the great war, had risen from a colonel 
through that principle of Toujours I'altaque! which 
he applied with a resolute skill; and, in our troops, 
he found the quality that was the proper weapon of 
his system. 

With the fall of darkness the traffic on the roads 
seemed to increase, although by day this had ap- 



354 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

peared impossible and perhaps it was only the dark- 
ness that gave the impression. German aeroplanes 
sought their targets with some telling results, al- 
though, considering the amount of bombs dropped, 
there were marvelously few casualties to men, ani- 
mals and transports. Anyone who tried to breast 
that pressing tide which halted only to press on 
again, if he were in a car, gave up the attempt. 
He turned and went on with the tide toward the 
front, held as fast as a cleat to a moving platform. 
The batteries, which had been barking on the plain, 
were shadowy outlines of riders astride horses, of 
men on guns and caissons as they moved forward to 
new positions. 

Ammunition and still more ammunition, and food 
snd water must go forward close to the lines in 
range of bullets as well as of shells, before morning 
b"oke. The engineers had their orders for material, 
liieir details to send forward to make defenses. 
They work all day and night, the engineers; and are 
called in to help fight, these soldiers of rifle and 
opade, whom we associate with bridge building. 
New dressing stations, new stations of all kinds, 
must be established; all the divisions' organization, 
concentrated on a narrow front, must go forward, 
each part finding its place in the night. Only the 
infantry which had been fighting was supposed to 
lie down after it had dug in, and the gunners also 
when they might find time. 

There could be no rest for commanding officers. 
They must report at the command posts of their 
superiors the situation of their command, Its losses 
In men and officers, Its exact disposition and Its 



DRIVING TOWARD SOISSONS 355 

morale. The reference to morale was always the 
same. The men wanted to go on; that was all. We 
had already won enough ground to make the opera- 
tion a success. It had been a great day in France, 
one of the greatest days even in her military his- 
tory. But no one was thinking of that in the pre- 
occupation of his work. Everybody thought of the 
morrow's work. 

Commanding officers had to assist in the business 
of coordinating the movement of supplies to their 
destinations; and then return to the front to give 
the orders and make the arrangements for attack 
and to push forward their command posts for the 
morrow. Keep pushing — that was the spirit of the 
fight as it had been of the day, which General Har- 
bord exemplified in removing his headquarters to 
Beaurepaire Farm. He was in the cellar with his 
staff, under a flooring in that exposed target in the 
middle of an expanse of fields, which even a 77 
shell would have pierced. He was sitting at a table 
which had been used by a German battalion com- 
mander who had occupied the dugout only that morn- 
ing. In another room the cup of tea that a first lieu- 
tenant had left undrunk when our artillery opened 
fire that morning was undisturbed beside some bis- 
cuits; and there were copies of the Cologne Gazette 
and a book about the Kc.iser as King and Man, 
idealizing him as the exponent of Kultur which was 
to be spread throughout the world by his army. If 
the lieutenant misses the book in his new quarters 
as a prisoner we shall allow him to read President 
Wilson's speech in its place. 

Major General Harbord was conducting opera- 



356 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

tions in the midst of the hottest action that our 
army had had since the Civil War in the same quiet 
way that he had acted as Chief of Staff; with de- 
cisions about movement of troops as prompt as when 
he was looking after routine papers that crossed his 
desk at G. H, Q. In going downstairs to see him 
you had to step over a wounded soldier, who half 
awoke from his sleep if you were noisy. The soldier 
was quite comfortable there on the floor; as he was 
used to sleeping on floors and on Mother Earth. 
Generals or colonels had no thought of asking him 
to move. The place belonged to him until morning 
when a surgeon told him that if he were feeling 
properly rested there was now a place in an ambu- 
lance for him. 

Small rooms, on either side of the entrance to the 
house, were used as dressing stations, where sur- 
geons, who, at home, had carried about little black 
bags to bedsides and received patients in their oflSces 
and diagnosed everything from imaginary dyspepsia 
to aneurism and appendicitis, might realize in this 
all-night task that they were indeed at the front. 
The room on the right apparently looked after the 
walking cases; that on the left included both walking 
and litter cases. One after another, these soldiers 
of ours, tall or short, swarthy or blond, in their dust- 
stafned, mud-spattered khaki, each with a red stain 
where a white bandage showed, came in for their 
second dressing. They took it much as if they were 
lining up for supper at the rolling kitchen. They 
are not heroes to themselves, only to you; especially 
the veterans who accept wounds as one of the fea- 
tures of army existence. 



DRIVING TOWARD SOISSONS 357 

"Well, Buddy, where's your trouble?" or, 
"Where did you get it?" the surgeon asked. 
Buddy is the personal word, although Yanks is the 
generic. There were a million Buddies in France. 
Whether the private is a university graduate or a 
shoe-string vender, he is a Buddy. 

" Shrapnel in the shoulder," or " Machine-gun 
bullet in the arm," would be the reply, as matter-of- 
fact as " Give me a ticket to Boonville ! " when we 
were supposed to be an emotional, nervous people. 
We are emotional at baseball and football games 
and political conventions and the banquets of college 
alumni and the annual gatherings of the hardware 
or the grocerymen's association. Probably we shall 
be at the future veteran associations, even if we 
were not in the act of becoming veterans. 

The surgeon cut off the first aid bandage and put 
on a new dressing, and agile, knowing fingers bound 
it in place, before turning to the next man. In the 
other room the men on litters were sometimes lying 
very still, unconcerned with their surroundings or 
unrealizing just what the surgeons were doing. 
These were placed in the first available ambulances, 
as they required more than the attention of a dress- 
ing station. Others who had bullet holes through 
the legs raised themselves up curiously to see the new 
dressing applied. They were no worse off than the 
walking cases, only they could not come in from the 
line on their own feet. Germans as well as Ameri- 
cans received attention. There was one German on 
a litter of sacking strung between two poles whose 
moans rose above all others out in the yard. He 
sat up holding fast to the toe of his boot which was 



358 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

bent toward him. When the surj^eon proceeded to 
take off the boot, the revehition of the ctlect of ;i 
shell fragment was accompanied by paroxysms. 
" Tlie hypodermic, and nothing for that but ampu- 
tation " when the German should reach the operat- 
ing table at the rear. He was fifty years of age, 
thick-set, a peasant, who probably had never been 
fifty miles away from his village except when the 
Kaiser called him to his tour of military training, 
and again when the Kaiser had called him to war. 
It Is these poor pawns of middle age and the very 
young boys in the German army, set to destroy vil- 
lages in France in what they are told is the defense 
'f their own country, who arouse your sympathetic 
\vonder over the limitations of human compreiienslon 
In the days of the telegraph and the popular press. 

If the queue of wounded slackened, the surgeons 
had only to go out in the yard to find others who 
might require attention, for wounded kept filtering 
in out of the darkness from the fields and the roads. 
In the dim light, with no forms clearly outlined, 
with some men standing and some sitting and others 
lying on the litters, with the moist silence of a sum- 
mer night broken by an occasional moan or by deep 
breathing, imagination had a fuller play than by 
daylight. 

When morning came the yard was still crowded. 
A group of Polish litter-bearer prisoners sat at one 
side with arms hanging relaxed in the same position 
as at midnight under an electric flash. You looked 
at them curiously to make sure that they had not 
been transformed Into statues over night. In their 
eyes was patience asking gently, " What are you 



DRIVING TOWARD SOISSOXS 359 

going to do with us?" a question which the Poles 
have been asking of their masters for generations — 
asking and watching for the event which would 
change the map of Europe in their favor. I had 
a desire to take off their field gray uniforms of 
bondage and give them their first papers as citizens 
of the United States, and, after six months in an 
American training camp, to send them out to fight 
in winning back their country which had been lost 
in the sport of kings. 



XXVIII 



VIERZY AND BERZY-LE-SEC 

A temporary hold-up in the attack — The final rush in company 
with tanks and Moroccans — A regiment that took two thousand 
prisoners — A chance to retire is a bid to our General to 
advance — In sight of Soissons — Again we "get there" — Five 
days of continuous offensive fighting for our First Division — 
Relieved at last by a Scotch division after an advance of 
seven miles, and the capture of three thousand five hundred 
prisoners and sixty-eight guns — A company commanded by a 
private. 

The scene at Beaurepaire Farm was singularly ex- 
pressive of war, because below stairs an American 
general, who had been a major held in leash on 
the Mexican border, was in France directing his 
race horse division for the morning's attack with a 
confidence worthy of militant democracy against 
military autocracy. At 6 P.M., on the i8th, as 
already stated, the Second Division had not taken 
the village of Vierzy in its third objective, but it 
had still six hours before midnight which would be 
counted the close of the day, and it meant to keep 
to schedule if courage and impetuous application 
made this possible. There is a deep, broad ravine 
which formed a Y in the Second's sector of ad- 
vance. It has many pockets, dips and turns within 
its irregular folds, with sunken roads and paths and 
clumps of bushes and trees. 

The village of Vauxcastle is at the edge of the 
360 



VIERZY AND BERZY-LE-SEC 361 

western branch of the Y and that of Vierzy is en- 
closed in the eastern branch, the two villages being 
separated by nearly a mile of this tricky recess in 
the plateau. Coordination in such surroundings, 
where detachments must feel their way against 
machine-gun nests, was difficult even for soldiers 
who had reached their jumping-off places on the run 
through the forest of Retz. Before we were sure 
of Vauxcastle and the western branch some of our 
men entered Vierzy, where they secured informa- 
tion about the defenses at the expense of a scorch- 
ing reception. 

In these operations units had become mixed; and 
every unit had been reduced by severe losses. The 
first tentative attempt on Vierzy had been made with- 
out artillery support or even trench mortars or gre- 
nades; simply with the naked rifle. We re-formed 
our lines, and fifteen tanks and some Moroccan 
troops came to our assistance in an attack which 
was supported by machine-gun fire and a powerful 
artillery concentration. We knew what we had to 
do and how to do it, in the second effort at 6 : 30 
P.M., when Americans and French with the tanks 
swept through Vierzy with amazing rapidity. The 
high-strung, ambitious Second did not stop until it 
was well out on the plateau and could report that, at 
the end of the most terrific and successful day any 
American division in France had known, it was be- 
yond its third objective. Night had come; and the 
disorganization that had resulted from the speedy 
determined work of cleaning up machine-gun nests 
and hidden snipers in that paradise for machine gun- 
ners had brought a further toll of casualties, to 



362 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

weaken the units which had to be straightened out 
in the darkness. 

However, we had the ravine. If we had not taken 
it that night we should not have taken it the next 
day against the strong reenforcements which the 
Germans were hurrying up, as General Harbord 
realized, and the result would have had an unfortu- 
nate effect upon the whole operation, with far worse 
casualties for the Second Division. We did not 
quite know how we had accomplished the marvel, 
but the maze of difficulties was at our back with our 
hospital corps men searching for the wounded, while 
all night the men in front were kept busy readjusting 
their line and digging under shell and machine fire. 

The Second was to go on at dawn with the aid of 
such reserves as the division could muster; and we 
pushed another mile and a half — when every rod was 
valuable in driving toward the Soissons-Chateau- 
Thierry road — until we were at the edge of the vil- 
lage of Tigny, when there was nothing to do but 
entrench. The Second had made a distance equal to 
what the other divisions were to make. It had held 
up its end in the fight under inconceivably difficult 
conditions. A single regiment had taken two thou- 
sand prisoners. 

From the time that the men left Montreuil they 
had had practically no sleep and no food and no 
water except what they carried. They had gone 
into the attack on the jump, and they had kept on the 
jump, fighting on their nerves all through that sec- 
ond night and all the next day until their strength 
was gone. Their spirits were willing, but their bodies 
could not respond to their will. France and Amer- 



VIERZY AND BERZY-LE-SEC 363 

ica might say truly, " Well done ! " when the sur- 
vivors who had swept through all obstacles were 
relieved by a French division. 

The Germans had been bringing up fresh divisions 
on the night of the iSth-iQth against both the First 
and Second, and the First Division, when it attacked 
at four o'clock on the morning of the 19th, was to 
feel their effect and that of desperate machine-gun 
resistance, particularly on the left where the 2nd 
Brigade had been unable to go beyond the Missy 
ravine to its third objective on the i8th. General 
Summerall had moved his headquarters to a great 
cave at Couevres on the morning of the i8th; and 
there he was seated opposite his chief of staff, with 
the rest of his staff at other tables. Everything 
seemed to be going in as routine a fashion as if the 
First were in the trenches. The 2nd Brigade had 
been able to go only to the Paris-Soissons road, 
as the French on its flank were held up and it was 
under a merciless fire, while the ist Brigade, which 
had advanced more successfully again, had its flank 
exposed. The tanks which had gone ahead to blaze 
the way for the 2nd Brigade had run into accu- 
rate artillery fire that had arrested their progress. 

Major General Summerall now had problems of 
real generalship confronting him. The test of the 
battle had come. We could no longer expect to go 
forward with the precision of maneuvers. He might 
withdraw his right; but no such thought occurred to 
him. He reorganized his forces to meet the situa- 
tion, preparatory to advancing on the left, and the 
way that subordinate commanders responded to his 
orders was a tribute to the efficiency and coordinate 



364 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

character of the division. The First was in hand; 
it was receiving very severe punishment, and it must 
have the plateau overlooking Soissons. The enemy 
must be put in a position where the threat to his 
salient would be too firmly established to be broken. 
General Mangin was not to be balked of his purpose, 
and the French division on our left was to join us in 
renewing the attack at five o'clock in the afternoon. 

We now had no tanks in support, but our artillery 
was pressing close and it was insistent, accurate and 
prodigal in its fire. Our men, as they advanced, had 
glimpses of Soissons on the river bottom in the lap 
of the hills. It was not in their objective; but none 
the less it called them to the mastery of the high 
ground which commanded all the valley in the neigh- 
borhood, while the French saw It with the same 
greedy eyes as in the pursuit from the Marne in 
19 14. It was a tangible, historical, visible goal. 
We should look down upon the famous town and the 
Germans should look up to us, if they wished to re- 
main on this side of the heights beyond it, where 
they had made the stand in 19 14 which was the be- 
ginning of four years of trench warfare. 

Again we " got there " — there's something very 
applicable in that expression. That night the First's 
left was in the edge of the Ploisy ravine, which de- 
scends toward the river level of Soissons, and its 
right was at Chazelle. Despite the resistance. Gen- 
eral Summerall had worked out his plan in a way 
that left no flanks exposed. The First was in a bet- 
ter tactical position than on the previous night. 
Twenty more field guns had been captured in their 
hiding-places in ravines. The number of German 



VIERZY AND BERZY-LE-SEC 365 

dead on the field was significant of how stoutly the 
enemy had fought on this second day. We had an- 
other thousand prisoners, including thirty-five officers 
who were as astounded at the result of the day's work 
as were those taken on the previous day; for they 
had taken for granted that after the initial surprise 
of the attack and the German army took the situa- 
tion seriously in hand, it would make short work of 
the Americans. Our walking wounded, returning in 
the darkness, were often stumbling with fatigue; 
but there was something even more revealing than 
yesterday's light in their eyes, when they lifted their 
heads at the thought of victory. 

Outside our sector beyond Ploisy was the village 
of Berzy-Ie-Sec, which will hold high place in the 
annals of the First in years to come. Its approaches 
are wicked for any attacking forces; the village itself 
is a natural fortress. As the French division on our 
left had more than enough obstacles to occupy it 
otherwise, we were asked to take Berzy. For two 
hours our guns bombarded it and then they gave our 
infantry a rolling barrage as they advanced at two 
o'clock in the afternoon, but the thing could not be 
done at that time in face of the increasing blasts of 
enemy machine-gun fire. But the First had already 
learned as the Second learned at Vierzy, how to go 
about the second attempt. It dug in on the plateau 
overlooking the village and it raked Berzy with 
machine-gun fire and pounded it with shells from its 
vantage ground and it tried to get a little sleep. By 
this time it needed sleep; and its thoughts ran to 
warm meals from rolling kitchens. To the rear, the 
scenes of other nights were repeated in the forward 



366 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

pressure of the ammunition trains in order that there 
should be no lack of shells or bullets to continue the 
fight. 

For the First must have Berzy-le-Sec the next 
morning. Shrewdly and irresistibly, beginning at 
four when dawn was hardly breaking — which had 
not given it very much sleep, by the way — it worked 
its way forward, cleaning up machine-gun nests un- 
til, at 9 : 30 A.M., it had the village and a battery of 
field guns and many machine guns, and began push- 
ing out patrols beyond the village. This was the 
fourth day of continuous offensive fighting for the 
First. The Moroccans were relieved that night and 
the plan had been that the First should be relieved. 

" I have promised my men that they shall go out 
to-night," said General Summerall to the French 
corps commander. " I do not like to break a 
promise." 

" They " The French commander was a little 

uncertain about American military customs In the 
matter of promises. 

" They will go on ! " General Summerall replied. 

Of course they would — and another day, and an- 
other until all fell in their tracks, as the men of the 
Second would. On the 22nd they straightened out 
their positions and took the sugar refinery east of 
Berzy in the course of the operations, without many 
losses. 

Meanwhile, trucks had been coursing along the 
roads from the British front bearing some canny 
and lusty fighters toward our sector. The officers 
of the Scottish division, which was to relieve the 
First, made reconnaissances during the day, and that 



VIERZY AND BERZY-LE-SEC 367 

night skirted figures crept out with veteran craft to 
take the Americans' places. They passed the com- 
pliment that we had made a " guid fecht " and that 
they would carry on. Graves of Scots, Frenchmen, 
Americans and Germans mark the plateau where 
the Scots were to have some very vicious fighting 
against the wall the Germans had formed to protect 
their retreat from the salient. Our men marched 
away vague of mind in their weariness about the inci- 
dents of these five days — and still victorious. 

It happened that the Scotch division's artillery 
was not yet all up, its ammunition trains had not 
arrived and it was expected to attack the next morn- 
ing. General Summerall solved this difficulty sim- 
ply. He realized how tired his gunners were ; but he 
was their old commander and he knew their char- 
acter. They were to serve another day; and thus 
it happened that an American artillery general com- 
manded Scots and some French, as well as his own 
units. Our weary sanitary force, which had felt 
to the full the burden of its part in battle, was also 
to remain. The " taking over " by the Scots from 
American had a fraternal good nature due to the 
common language and it was singularly smooth, as 
a final testimonial to the efficiency of the reliable 
First as well as to the Scots. 

The officers and men of the First felt inexpressibly 
and silently the loss of the comrades who had fallen; 
but the cost in dead and wounded, which was the 
greatest any of our divisions had known in a single 
action, and about all any division in this war has paid 
in a successful offensive where it carried its ob- 
jectives and held them and was methodically relieved, 



368 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

had been paid in striking a vital blow. Not a single 
soldier of the First, so far as known, had been taken 
prisoner. Sixty-eight captured guns were brought 
away from the field; some others were too exposed 
to be removed. As for the large numbers of ma- 
chine guns taken, the First, which made so much of 
the taking of its first machine gun, hardly considered 
them worth counting. Approximately seven miles of 
advance was made; the greatest gain in any action 
since the Champagne offensive of 19 17. The num- 
ber of prisoners was over 3,500 with 125 officers. 
Together the First and the Second divisions had 
taken over 7,000 prisoners and over 100 guns. 

Ofl^icer casualties in the infantry were high, espe- 
cially among the field officers of the First. Colonel 
Smith, commanding the 26th, had been killed 
by a machine-gun bullet while making a reconnais- 
sance. Lieutenant Colonel Eliot, of the 26th, was 
also killed; and all its field officers were killed 
or wounded, leaving a captain of two years' experi- 
ence commanding the regiment. Two of the 
other regiments lost all field officers killed or 
wounded, except a colonel, and the remaining regi- 
ment lost all field officers. When seniors fell juniors 
rose to the opportunity. 

Every battalion of the two divisions had its epic; 
every company had a story worth telling at length. 
Scores of incidents revealed coolness, daring, cour- 
age, resource and endurance; and more crosses were 
earned than could be bestowed in an action of such 
swift processes that heroic deeds passed without 
notice. There was one incident which has a peculi- 
arly American appeal. When General Summerall, 



VIERZY AND BERZY-LE-SEC 369 

who likes to see his men in action and talk with them, 
was down in the front line at night he came to a com- 
pany which had only fifty or sixty survivors. He 
asked who commanded the company, and a private 
stood up and saluted, saying, " I do, sir ! " With 
such natural leaders as this we shall not want for 
officers. 

When the First and the Second were back in their 
billeting areas and the men had slept and washed 
and eaten a square meal for the first time in a week, 
they were playing with the children as usual, or look- 
ing into the shop windows to see if there was any- 
thing they wanted to buy. They ate all the chocolate 
the Y. M. C. A. and the K. of C. had to offer. They 
smoked a good many cigarettes. And would they 
have a chance to go to Paris now on leave? They 
had an idea that they had earned that privilege, and 
it was agreed that they had, even those who had not 
won the cross. They wondered what kind of re- 
placements would come to take the place of friends 
who had fallen. With all the new men the First 
and the Second would be different. No ! The First 
and the Second had a character established which 
would mold the recruits into its likeness. The men 
were not boastful, indeed they were disinclined to 
talk of their exploits, but there was something in their 
attitude which said that they had known battle and 
had proved themselves. As for the glowing compli- 
ments of the French and the Croix de Guerre and the 
Medaille Militaire and the Legion of Honor medals 
they wished to bestow — well, this was very gratify- 
ing. 

I have written at length about the part the First 



370 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

and Second divisions played, because it was influ- 
ential in cracking the shell of the Marne salient and 
because it expressed the character of fighting in which 
other divisions, whose part in reducing the salient 
may not be given as much prominence, were to give 
the same gratifying account of themselves. 



XXIX 

FORWARD FROM CHATEAU-THIERRY 

The New England Division at Seicheprey — This division dislikes 
to stop in an offensive — At last it had a chance to make a real 
attack — New Englanders, Pennsylvanians and regulars help 
the Germans across the Marne — The Twenty-sixth finds the 
enemy has retreated — It follows close on his heels — Pennsyl- 
vania troops in the streets of recaptured Chateau-Thierry — 
The Third has the right to be called the Marne Division — 
Pressing forward beyond the Marne — The Twenty-sixth held 
up — Lines up with a brigade from the Pennsylvania Division 
and goes on — New Englanders actively engaged for eight days. 

At the same time that General Mangin was driving 
toward Soissons, French and British divisions, in the 
face of stubborn defenses, were making sturdy at- 
tacks at the Rheims base of the salient in order to 
occupy German divisions with a threat in this direc- 
tion; and also another American division, the 
Twenty-sixth, as well as the First and Second, was 
attacking on July i8th. 

The Twenty-sixth had had a hard two months in 
the Toul sector, where it had held more front than 
the First which it had relieved; and, I may mention 
in passing, that it had met at Seicheprey in this 
sector the first serious attack which our army had 
received. Seicheprey lies on a flat which is a swamp 
in the spring rains, under full observation from Mont 
Sec. The German " traveling circus " had played a 
" one-night stand" here on April 20th. This circus 

371 



372 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

consisted of veteran storm troops, with excellent 
artillery support, for making sudden thrusts which 
should prevent the Allied line from losing its respect 
for German valor. Applied to us, it was probably 
meant as a bit of frightfulness which would have a 
demoralizing effect upon our morale. Under a 
welter of artillery fire sufficient for a grand offensive, 
picked storm troops broke through our trenches and 
into the village and having done what damage they 
could they withdrew, Seicheprey was an old story 
in July, though important in April; and it should be 
mentioned as a primary exhibition of courage on the 
part of junior officers and men in face of a concen- 
trated and well-planned effort. 

After a short rest, the Twenty-sixth had been sent 
to the Marne salient to take over the sector where 
the Second Division had won its spurs in conquering 
Vaux and Belleau Wood. This sector was still ac- 
tive enough to be very wearing on its occupants. 
The Twenty-sixth had experienced two weeks of its 
vexations when it was ordered to attack on July i8th 
as the pivot of the movement toward Soissons. Its 
right resting at Vaux on the Paris-Chateau-Thierry 
road, it was to take the villages of Torcy and Bel- 
leau and advance its line on the left of Bouresches. 
Thus, the Twenty-sixth had to be content with a 
strictly limited objective in the counter-offensive when 
months of stalling had made it no less impatient for 
a real stride than the First and Second. 

After the Twenty-sixth had taken Belleau and 
Torcy and a hamlet beyond Torcy at the foot of the 
commanding Hill 193 in good fashion, some units, 
in their enthusiasm, forgot that they were a part of 



A 



FROM CHATEAU-THIERRY 373 

a pivot and started up the ascent. They were push- 
ing along valiantly when they were recalled because 
this hill was not in their sector. There was some- 
thing very appealing in their initiative, even if it 
were contrary to orders. One likes to dwell on the 
spirit of men who want to master any height. The 
Germans did not fail to make prompt use of 193 by 
establishing machine guns there to harass the 
Twenty-sixth's positions with plunging fire. 

As the Twenty-sixth was to press against the lower 
side of the pocket while the divisions to the north 
were to take stitches in the mouth of the pocket, it 
was due to mark time on July 19th. That is, it 
was to mark time with the exception that the enthus- 
ing word came that 193 was to be taken. After the 
machine-gun fire which they had endured from that 
direction, the troops assigned to the attack went in 
with the kind of determination that means success. 
They were well started and felt absolutely sure of 
their goal when once more they were recalled, owing 
to the tactical situation which concerned other divi- 
sions and other plans. The High Command did not 
want them isolated on the summit without support 
from the left. The men, who for the second time 
had charged up 193 only to be marched down again, 
had not a favorable opinion of grand tactics at that 
moment. Their disgust was simple and human. 
Evidently, the Twenty-sixth, which had endured 
Mont Sec, was always to sit under fire from hills. 
An offensive for the Twenty-sixth meant that the 
hand was off the collar of the dog of war, but he 
could only go to the end of the leash. But pa- 
tience is the great thing for all who chafe at restraint 



374 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

in war. The Twenty-sixth was to be given the leash 
and a free field later. 

By the end of the third, if not at the end of the 
first day of the drive toward Soissons, the Germans 
must have known that they would have to retire at 
least from the lower portion of the salient. Their 
problem was to save as much of their material as 
they could by their resistance; ours to press as hard 
as we could to accomplish the results which they 
wished to avoid. American divisions of the Paris 
group — called for purposes of " telegraphic camou- 
flage " Kitty and Jennie and other feminine names, 
which seemed strange diminutives for organizations 
of warriors, — were now to carry out the purpose of 
their presence by not holding trenches for the de- 
fense of Paris but of fighting in the offensive. Co- 
operating with the French, they were to learn, as 
they advanced in face of machine-gun nest^ and har- 
assing artillery fire, the lessons in maneuver and in 
suppleness and coordination which were to be the 
final course in instruction before the organization of 
our army as an integral force. As a part of General 
Pershing's system of progressive education, the First 
Corps, under Major General Hunter Liggett, was 
functioning in active battle for the first time with 
the Twenty-sixth and a French division under its 
command. 

The German's first answer to the Soissons drive 
was to close the fatuous incident of crossing the 
Marne by the withdrawal of his troops from the 
south bank of the Marne, which he accomplished 
by returning as he had come, on bridges and pas- 
seroles, on the night of the I9th-20th to the north 



FROM CHATEAU-THIERRY 375 

bank, where he kept up machine-gun fire to hold back 
the patrols of the Third Division from following 
immediately; but they were active enough to ascer- 
tain the situation. Now, as we applied the pincers 
to the point of the salient, both banks of the river 
were to be ours again; and Chateau-Thierry was to 
be ours again. 

On July 20th, our Third, Twenty-eighth and 
Twenty-sixth divisions were to know something of 
the exhilaration that the First and Second had known 
on the 1 8th. They were to drive ahead; but before 
them was no sweep of plateau with objectives in a 
straight line, but a river with all its bridges down 
for the Third and Twenty-eighth, while all the 
region around Chateau-Thierry forming the walls 
of the Marne consists of high hills, irregular in 
contour, of ravines and forests and patches of woods 
and roads under observation. 

The Twenty-sixth had its left at Torcy and its 
right at Vaux in the valley before the rise in the 
Paris road over the crest, where it turns to the right 
in a sharp ascent toward Chateau-Thierry. On 
July 20th, the Twenty-sixth attacked and met with a 
wicked and galling resistance from machine guns 
which were in position to cover the German retreat 
from Chateau-Thierry and the Marne. Our hne 
was held up in places; that was the German inten- 
tion at any cost, until a certain amount of time was 
gained; but in face of the certainty that the defend- 
ing force must break under renewed pressure, as 
soon as we brought up reserves and made new dis- 
positions. 

When the Twenty-sixth started to attack on the 



376 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

early morning of the 21st there was nothing to 
attack. The German was going; and the Twenty- 
sixth was to give chase. Its pursuing and 
watchful patrols were followed by the troops in 
columns as they passed by positions which had 
vomited fire at them for the last two weeks, past 
abandoned German ammunition, discarded German 
helmets and all the evidences of hasty withdrawal, 
including one nine-inch gun as well as field guns, 
which the Germans could not bring away. It was 
a march clear past the Chateau-Thierry-Soissons 
road, before the patrols called a halt in face of the 
next line of resistance; a march, yes, but in fact a 
complicated maneuver along poor country roads up 
hill and down, keeping liaison with the French troops 
on the right and left and requiring extreme sensi- 
tiveness on the part of the feeling fingers ahead, 
and care lest any unit should fall into some trap 
which was laid under the flanking fire of hid- 
den machine guns and a concentration of artillery 
fire. 

Army, corps, and division commands were urging 
speed in front and in the rear. The German was 
going; we knew not how far at the time. The natu- 
ral offensive spirit of troops, in the first intoxicating 
experience of pursuit, made us hug the enemy close. 
He must be given no leisure. If you look at a big 
map marked with the lines of the Allies' advance 
each day as they pressed in on the salient you will 
see that after the i8th, the 21st was the next red- 
letter day, when the Germans yielded Chateau- 
Thierry and the north bank of the Marne, which 
winds northeast beyond Chateau-Thierry to Mont 



A 



FROM CHATEAU-THIERRY 377 

St. Pere, and the great forest of Barbillon to the 
north of Chateau-Thierry, and a depth of from three 
to ten miles in the rough form of a boot leg from 
the river north to Montgru-St. Hilaire. 

The forest of Trugny extends as a tongue from 
the northeast corner of the great forest of Barbillon, 
and near the forest is the hamlet of Trugny and 
north of it the village of Epieds; and, in this forest 
and in these villages, the Germans awaited the 
Twenty-sixth with many nests of hidden machine 
guns and field batteries in their support to cover the 
Jaulgonne-Fere-en-Tardenois road. There was an 
end of marching in columns as our patrols devel- 
oped the enemy, but the full force of the resistance 
was carefully held under cover until we began an 
attack. The enemy had planned to annihilate these 
impetuous fresh American troops at this point and 
also any French on either flank, for he required 
time in this direction, on the 22nd day of July, to 
protect his retreat, particularly as the French, in- 
cluding our Third Division, were now pressing 
toward Jaulgonne in the other direction. It was 
a race on the part of our converging forces in that 
region of forests, hills and ravines to put the Ger- 
mans in pockets within their pocket, and on their 
part, by the use of their corps d'elite, the machine 
gunners, with unlimited guns and ammunition, to stay 
our advance. 

While the Twenty-sixth was going against the 
positions at Trugny and Epieds, an officer, who 
skirted the front from American division to Ameri- 
can division with glimpses of everything from com- 
bat waves, and columns or sniping patrols of our 



378 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

men advancing against machine-gun fire to all the 
transport of an army in movement at the rear, might 
have an expansion of spirit in the visual realization 
of our success, which was in some respects equally 
as convincing as that on the fields of the drive to 
Soissons. I doubt if anyone who has not been close 
to the war for four years until all its routine has 
become horribly normal can feel as deeply, when 
we do have a thrill, as we old fellows of the war 
whose emotions have become dormant, only to rise 
on such occasions as this with all the cumulative 
effect of experience of association as fuel to the 
flame. 

Chateau-Thierry was a good-sized town. Its 
bridges bestrode the Marne. Town and river to- 
gether were a talisman of victory. I confess that as 
I rode into its streets something which rose from 
the region of my heart was fast in my throat. 
Chateau-Thierry would not be taken again by the 
enemy. The tag on the rope of the four years' tug- 
of-war had finally been drawn to our side to remain. 
French poUus were moving about in the town in 
their same characteristic supple, utterly un-German 
fashion. I think that the Lord made a French- 
man in order to have a contrast with a Prussian. 
The few residents who had not flown before the 
enemy, were visible through the open doorways of 
*the deserted city; and they suggested undemonstra- 
tive watchmen who had kept its altar fires burning 
during the alien occupation. 

A column of soldiers of the Twenty-eighth Divi- 
sion was halted in the street leading north to the 
Soissons road, on its way to join the Twenty-sixth 



FROM CHATEAU-THIERRY 379 

Division. The German artillery began a bonribard- 
ment. Shells were falling on both sides of the 
streets with the usual muffled crashing report of shell- 
bursts In buildings. 

" I guess it's better being In the streets than In 
billets," said one of the men. " Probably the Boche 

are shooting at the streets " which was good 

philosophy. 

Down by the river one span of each of the bridges 
had been dropped in a pile of stone and mortar on 
the river bottom; and you looked across at a rail- 
road engine, which was pioneering the reestablish- 
ment of communications on the line to Epernay, and 
to where our machine gunners of the Third Division 
had kept their vigil when to expose yourself on that 
river bank was death. A new pontoon bridge had 
been laid. Along the road which follows the north 
bank of the river, American wagon trains and cars 
were moving forward tossing up mantles of dust 
through the ruins of Gland; and near Gland was 
another pontoon bridge, with fresh shell holes from 
2io's in the neighborhood of this fair target for 
German long-range guns. German pontoons which 
had been torn by shrapnel lay along the bank; and 
German dead were still unburied. We were using 
German pontoons in making another bridge. Mezy, 
across the river, where that half-company of the 
Third had held out with such redoubtable tenacity, 
was silent and peaceful against the background of 
summer's dark green. 

The Third, which might be called the Marne 
division, could lay claim to still further interest 
in the Marne. It had held the bridge ; it had checked 



38o AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the offensive of July 15th on its front; and now it 
had the Marne at its back. Major General Dick- 
man, a division commander who had the satisfaction 
of pursuit after his resolute stonewalling, was sitting 
by the roadside outside of Mont St. Pere writing 
an order. Shells were falling steadily in the village, 
and they were being aimed at the road on the other 
side of him; but he was too interested in the order 
to notice the fact. Another German battery was 
paying its respects to the slopes of the hill of St. 
Pere in the background, but our men had already 
passed over the hill if they were the object of the 
fire. The German gunners were missing us all 
around, Major General, wagon trains and bridges, 
but kicking up a lot of dust about the regimental 
commanders' dugout in the village. 

The Third had been fighting continuously since 
July 15th, and some of its units had to march by 
the lower bridges beyond Chateau-Thierry, followed 
by its transport, in order to reach their present posi- 
tions. They were tired beyond the comprehension 
of any man who has not carried a pack and a rifle, 
but that did not matter to the defenders of the Marne 
who were driving the enemy away from the Marne. 
Khaki figures were visible from the hills pushing for- 
ward around Chartreves and into Chartreves. One 
village taken, the thing was to take another. Beyond 
Chartreves was Jaulgonne, along a road in rough 
country with steep ascents away from the river 
toward the north and with no limit to the obstacles 
on the way, beside the hard fighting which brought 
up fresh German regiments in vain to stay our prog- 
ress. The Third was dogged in its weariness, re- 



FROM CHATEAU-THIERRY 381 

celvlng a fresh impetus with each success, and its new 
artillery was vigorous in support. 

Along the roads toward Epieds, where the 
Twenty-sixth was operating, you had the coagulated 
effects of the pressure of men and transport to the 
front in its most baffling aspect to commanders. The 
Twenty-sixth had not enough roads for its purpose. 
It had had to change front in the course of its move- 
ment, adopting itself to different tactical require- 
ments as well as different terrain. Its units were 
still somewhat mixed after their rush from Torcy, 
when on the morning of the 22nd it kept faith with 
orders and the demands of the situation, which re- 
quired that no time be lost by attacking. The Ger- 
mans had four days in which to prepare for our 
reception and the full nature of it now developed. 
The villages of Epieds and Trugny were hives of 
machine guns; and machine guns were cunningly 
hidden in the wheat fields awaiting targets that had 
to move across the open in full view. There are 
things that brave men can do and things that they 
cannot. The Twenty-sixth could not take these vil- 
lages that day. Some intrepid units miraculously 
entered the Trugny woods in face of machine-gun 
storms in a daring effort to flank out the village of 
Trugny, but this was not the practicable way, as 
they found. 

We had revealed the enemy's hand; we had in- 
formation. He in turn rested and relied upon his 
artillery which sent over gas where he thought it 
would be most effective, and shrapnel and high ex- 
plosives where he thought that they would be most 
effective. Our wounded, earth-stained and good- 



382 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

natured, crawling through the wheat aiul out of the 
woods, went filteriiio- back throuoh the ra\ iiies awav 
troni the ghit of the roads. The tall figure oi Major 
General Edwards was seen going from conunand 
post to post, to keep in touch with the situation. 
His own headquarters were at Cirand Picardie l-arni, 
where a big shell hole through the tiiick walls let 
in the light on the table where he worked, and his 
start officers had their oHices in the stalls of the 
stable, while our 155 (long) guns were barking 
nearby. 

Of course the attack was to be continued. The 
enemy must go. The next night a regiment rushed 
Trugny Wood, breaking down niaciiine-gun oppo- 
sition, and driving tiirough the tiiickcts almost to 
the other side of the wood, but it was Hanked by 
machine-gun tire which neither artillery tire nor rifle 
grenades nor automatic rifles nor sniping could over- 
come. The engineers of the Twenty-sixth made an 
equally audacious supporting movement toward 
Trugny, in which the leadership of one officer was 
conspicuous; and they held tenaciously to their 
ground. We had made the enemy pay; we had 
silenced many of his guns, but not enough. We must 
try again. 

Two battalions of the Twenty-eighth Division had 
already been placed at the Iwenty-sixth's disposal. 
Now the rest of their brigade was brought up. The 
Twenty-eighth was going through that stage of its 
divisional experience, which had been the lot of 
other divisions, in having its units separated under 
other commands. This meant the application of bat- 
tle lessons in association with veteran officers and 



FROM CHATEAU-THIKHRY 383 

commanders, but the pupils always look forward to 
the day when they shall be a part of their own intact 
command. 

'i his 56th Brigade had been for two days with- 
out sleep on the march from the other side of 
the Marne along dusty roads by the lower bridges. 
It had been subject to many annoyances which arc 
inevitable when troops are being spurred forward in 
pursuit with roads jammed and columns converging, 
and when the movement of all units is subject to the 
needs of the moment in open warfare. Now it was 
to be sent into Trugny Wood to assist the Twenty- 
sixth in the next attack set for the morning of the 
24th — the attack which was to go home. 

However tired the New Fnglanders and Penn- 
sylvanians were they would keep at it until they had 
the wood and the two villages. As the result of our 
attacks and our persistent fire and our preparations 
the Germans withdrew and the spring was in tired 
legs again as we took up hot pursuit. 7 he motor 
machine-gun battalion of the Twenty-sixth, taking 
the place of cavalry, was given the right of way 
through the troops by Major General Edwards. 
Disregarding everything but speed, it hurried on 
to the Jaulgonne-Fere-en-Tardenois road, where it 
posted itself in face of the enemy's machine guns 
and held its position — a very brilliant stroke with 
all the romance of any cavalry charge. 

7'hat night the pushing Twenty-sixth was in touch 
with the next line of defense of the Germans and 
it and the brigade of the Twenty-eighth were re- 
lieved by the Forty-second Division, which had come 
from its successful resistance to the German offensive 



384 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

of July 1 5th. The taking of Epieds and Trugny and 
Taiil£i:onne, as a part of the operations of the other 
Allied troops, closed the first stage of the tight for 
the salient. 

The Marne salient was no longer a pocket. It 
was a bow. The next stage in the advance would 
be the River Ourcq. For eight days now the 
Twenty-sixth had been actively engaged, always 
under fire. When it was not attacking it was in 
pursuit or preparing for attack. There had been no 
rest for officers and men; all New England wanted 
was to wash of^ the accumulated dust of those eight 
days and to sleep. But in the tired eyes of gaunt 
figures staggering with fatigue there was the gleam 
of victory. 



XXX 

THE HEIGHTS OF THE OURCQ 

The Rainbow Division to the front — Red Cross Farm — The attack 
through a ditch — The fannous Heights of the Ourcq — Rainbows, 
regulars and the Pennsylvania division fight their way toward 
them — A Pennsylvania brigade crosses the Ourcq — The Thirty- 
second Division from Michigan and Wisconsin in the fight — 
History and character of the famous Thirty-second — Particu- 
larly belligerent, especially from Milwaukee — The hand-to- 
hand fight at night — A tough proposition — Fierce fighting 
when the Rainbows crossed the Ourcq and attacked the height 
beyond — The men from Michigan and Wisconsin storm the 
heights — Our boys advance under machine-gun fire quietly 
smoking cigarettes — Victory at last, and our men eat captured 
German rations. 

It was under sniping from riflemen, machine-gun fire 
and persistent dogging artillery fire, grimly sugges- 
tive enough of the task which it had in hand, that 
the Forty-second relieved the Twenty-sixth Division. 
There is a temptation, as they come from different 
States, to mention the regiments of the Rainbow 
Division, only this would mean mentioning all the 
American regiments engaged, which would require a 
book for each regiment, if one fully narrated its 
exploits. Again, there are no States or counties in 
the A. E. F., which is entirely United States, al- 
though spirit of corps is welcomed in every unit, 
while the division for tactical purposes is the unit to 
which one naturally refers. 

My purpose in dwelling on the taking of the Red 
385 



386 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

Cross Farm is not to exploit the valor and the 
shrewdness shown in its storming as exceptional, but 
because it was such a characteristic illustration of the 
opposition which we had to overcome on the way to 
the Vesle. The buildings of the farm form a big 
compound, of a type familiar in France. Its thick 
walls of stone and mortar will stop machine-gun 
bullets. The effect of a shell which penetrates the 
walls is localized in the room where it bursts. 
Wooden farm buildings at home, being readily set 
on fire by incendiary shells, would be of little service 
for defense; those in France become veritable 
fortresses, with their deep cellars turned into refuges, 
when the walls were falling from a concentration of 
high-explosive shells, which Is the best medicine for 
them. Out of the debris the machine gunners build 
strong emplacements for their guns, and they come 
out of the cellar to man any surviving guns when the 
bombardment Is over. 

The Red Cross Farm was Ideally located for Ger- 
man purposes In the midst of an open field, with its 
main buildings looking toward two roads of approach 
from two sides of the forest, which made its location 
suggestive of the house of a pioneer in a clearing. 
The Germans had concentrated their machine guns 
at the farm and at the entrance of the forest where 
they could sweep the roads. When we came through 
the forest we were in full view of the farm, which 
had machine guns under the roof, on the second 
floor and on the lower floor, and also in bushes in 
front of the buildings, I am told. There was evi- 
dently not a square foot of space on three sides 
that the guns did not command. 



THE HEIGHTS OF THE OURCQ 387 

The farm looked innocently peaceful until we 
aroused the hornets; and we did not arouse them all 
with a patrol of a few men. This required a demon- 
stration in force. The German commander was not 
going to display all the cards in his hand until it 
was worth while. The Forty-second had fought its 
way forward through the woods under gas and shells 
and sniping to find that this farmhouse held the key 
to the positions ahead, while it was supported 
by strong forces of German infantry at other 
points. 

After six hours' effort at encircling and flanking 
a simpler plan was revealed. It happened that a 
ditch ran along the road from the south, past the 
farm on the one side which was unprotected, and 
that the ditch was hidden by a straggling growth 
of bushes all the way from the forest right up to the 
entrance to the compound. The ditch and bushes 
were not on the military map ; perhaps the bushes had 
grown up since the map was made. There are many 
features in terrain which are not on even the largest 
scale maps; and this accounts for the desire of ener- 
getic battalion commanders to see for themselves 
where they are going. Whether or not the grass 
or grain in a field has been cut is a matter of vital 
importance. A patch of pole beans in a garden, or 
an isolated shrub, may conceal a machine gun. 

It did not require any staff councils to appreciate 
the value of that ditch and that line of bushes. In 
the early morning of the 26th two platoons led by 
two lieutenants crept up the ditch. Their adventure 
was the more daring and perilous as they did not 
know how many gunners and machine guns were en- 



388 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

'sconced in the group of buildings; but they had no 
doubt of the result once they came to close quarters 
with the gunners. Then the man-to-man element 
counted. It was light enough for our men to see 
when they rushed into the compound and scattered 
for the entrances to the buildings. 

You recollect the painting of the tw(5^men with 
pistols drawn across a table which was a very im- 
promptu duel, and many pictures of " hands up " in 
Western saloons, and what happens when the train 
robber appears in the railroad coach, six-shooter in 
hand. There were not even impromptu dueling 
formalities on this occasion. It was a matter of 
" getting the drop " on the other fellow. The Ger- 
mans were not expecting us and were either at their 
guns with their backs to us, or drowsing; and we 
knew why we were there and that every second 
counted. There was very ugly individual fighting 
while it lasted, and, when it was over, the survivors 
of the two platoons had possession of the farm and 
a machine gun for every survivor, and more ammuni- 
tion than they could carry forward for firing at the 
Germans. 

This was only one farm; its taking appealingly 
sensational. Every farm on any German line of re- 
sistance was a machine-gun nest. White Cross Farm 
was also stubborn and won by determined charges; 
but it was the taking of Red Cross that opened the 
way for the division to the Ourcq, which is a thread 
of a stream except when a rain swells it from the 
watershed of the famous " heights of the Ourcq." 
These sweep down in long descents to the river bed, 
with great stretches of open field, and they are quite 



THE HEIGHTS OF THE OURCQ 389 

up to their reputation as heights, as every soldier of 
four American divisions will agree. 

Now the right flank, of the Forty-second found 
itself in the open while the left was still in the 
irregular Forest de Fere. On that immense apron 
sweeping down toward the bend in the Ourcq, in 
front of Sergy and Cierges, there was a single tree, 
which, for the climbing, offered a view clear up to 
the edge of the forest and to the heights on the other 
side of the river. I have no recollection of any more 
important tree than this isolated, scrubby sentinel. 
A German observer occupied It, with a telephone, 
and he also had a saw with a view to preventing any 
successor enjoying his privileges. He had cut two 
or three inches into the trunk before our skirmishers' 
bullets hissed "Woodman, spare that tree!" and 
brought him down. But he had served the purpose 
of directing the German guns where to find the 
Americans who had not come in view of the heights 
of the Ourcq and to be ready for them when they 
did come in view. 

Shell fire was not going to stop the Forty-second, 
particularly when it passed over the rise, and, before 
it, down the apron, lay a dark run, which was the 
river bed, the fringes of trees, and beyond it the 
same upward sweep of fields dotted by woods. It 
was a great panorama of landscape; and the broad 
view Included on the right advancing figures in 
khaki which did not belong to the Forty-second. 
These were men of the 55th Brigade of our Tv/enty- 
eighth Division attacking the village of Fresnes. 
On their right was the Third Division, which had 
fought its way through from Jaulgonne. Thus three 



390 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

American divisions were moving together towards 
the heights of the Ourcq. 

Would the Germans, now the salient was pushed 
into a bow, make a stand on the Ourcq? These di- 
visions were not bound by speculative inquiries. 
They were on their way to secure a direct answer. 
The hidden batteries in the Meuniere Wood east of 
Sergy, with this procession in full view, had such a 
number of targets that they could not hope to stop 
such a systematic movement. We swept through 
the shell fire and the machine-gun fire which de- 
veloped as we approached the Ourcq. It was better 
to go forward than to go back and we went forward. 
That night the Forty-second had some of its elements 
across the Ourcq, and, after a hard day, it knew by 
the machine-gun fire and shell fire from the heights 
beyond Sergy and Cierges, that the German was not 
in any mood to yield such excellent positions without 
a fight, which was a further justification for the 
Forty-second in driving down those exposed reserve 
slopes. 

July 27th, Including what the Forty-second and 
the other American divisions had gained, was an- 
other red-letter day, as the whole Allied line had 
advanced from Basileux in the direction of Rheims 
to Bruyeres in the direction of Soissons, and on the 
28th the line was to move forward over a greater 
length, if not for as much depth, in the process of 
pursuit and closing In on the enemy^s new line of 
resistance. It Is well to bear In mind that immense 
forces were engaged In the operation, which required 
that there should be persistent pressure, or troops 
sufi5cient to make the pressure when opportunity oc- 



THE HEIGHTS OF THE OURCQ 391 

curred, along the front all the way from Soissons to 
Rhelms. 

Our Twenty-eighth (the 55th Brigade), which 
was proving its worth by its gallantry and en- 
durance, now had taken over a sector from a French 
division under its own command, while the Fifty-sixth 
was fighting under the French, and took La Motte 
Farm and the village of Courmont on the morning 
of the 28th and planned to keep on across the Ourcq. 
It had been raining; but this was not such a hardship 
in midsummer, as the men who had no chance to wash 
at least had the advantage of " feeling " water. No 
midsummer's rain is the slightest reason for delay- 
ing an operation unless it stalls ammunition trains. 
f'The rain had made the Ourcq, which was easily ford- 
able as a rule, a stream fifteen yards wide and three 
feet deep. There was a call for a bridge, which 
the Twenty-eighth constructed out of timbers from 
the ruins of villages, and the next morning it had 
\ two battalions well established on the other side of 
' the " creek," as the men called it, and it would be 
considered nothing more than a creek at home. The 
bridge had been built and the crossing made under 
shell and machine-gun fire which was never to cease 
until the heights of the Ourcq were cleared of the 
enemy. 

On the 29th another division, the Thirty-second, 
former National Guard from Michigan and Wiscon- 
sin under Major General William G. Haan, which, 
after service in a quiet trench sector, was to have as 
abrupt an entry, considering its previous preparation, 
into violent attack as any division in our army. Its 
success was not remarkable in this respect alone. 



392 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

When it arrived in France in the previous March, 
it had been made a replacement division, which meant 
that it was to be occupied back of the lines drilling 
replacements for other divisions. It sent over two 
thousand men, including nine captains, as replace- 
ments to our First Division; one regiment was en- 
tirely separated from the division for a while; the 
others were sent to the S. O. S. as labor troops. 
Wisconsin and Michigan were not altogether happy 
over the arrangement, but, at this time, before the 
great rush of troops from home, necessity required 
that some division should play this part. 

Major General Haan believed in his division, 
and he is a man who persists in his convictions until 
they take form in action. On April 15th, when it 
was decided to make the Thirty-second a temporary 
combat division, one-half of the enlisted personnel 
remained. These were from Michigan and Wiscon- 
sin. After four weeks' training the division went 
into the trenches in Alsace, and you began to hear 
pleasant things about the Thirty-second. At one 
time it was holding sixteen miles of front. Those 
whose business it was to know decided that this tem- 
porary combat division was good enough to help 
reduce the swelling of the German line. 

On July 19th the Thirty-second was sent back of 
the Soissons sector by train, and, after two days' 
waiting there, it was started on a long journey in 
motor trucks to the Ourcq. Certainly if any division 
had won its own way it was the Thirty-second. Re- 
placement division? I have heard men of other 
divisions, including the French, sound the praise of 
the magnificent way in which the Thirty-second ad- 



THE HEIGHTS OF THE OURCQ 393 

vanced down the slopes under shell fire, without so 
much as a quiver of a break in its precision, as it 
came into action on the Ourcq. The Michigan and 
Wisconsin men still with the division will tell you 
that they have kept up its character — and no doubt 
they have character. It is a quiet, undemonstrative, 
workmanlike division in which officers who have 
automobile makers in their companies feel no hesi- 
tation in saying that their commands are every whit 
as good as the companies with a large number of 
lumber-jacks. 

Some people thought two years ago that Wiscon- 
sin was pacifist and pro-German, and that Iowa took 
no interest in the war or preparedness. From the 
way that Wisconsin, and the Iowa men of the Forty- 
second, charged the heights of the Ourcq, it would 
appear that when these two States make war it is of 
no pacific variety. They put conviction into their 
blows. Farmers' sons did not come from the Middle 
West to France on a holiday. They had come to 
make the kind of war that the enemy would respect. 
As for those supposedly pro-Germans from Mil- 
waukee, they were peculiarly belligerent. 

The Thirty-second was to take the place of the 
Third Division, which closed its brilliant service with 
a final burst of energy in advancing on Roncheres 
Wood. If ever a division needed a respite from war 
it was the Third. Including that regiment which 
held the railroad track against the German assaults 
on July 15th, it had kept on with the pursuit in heat 
and dust against stubborn positions, with intervals 
of a day or two in reserve for the different units, 
'as it was not within the endurance of any human 



394 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

beings to fight continuously for two weeks without 
sleep. On this drive to the Vesle we were to learn 
how the healthy physical regime of camps and drill 
-"grounds, with no stimulus except good food, re- 
s, enforces youth with reserve strength that is a bank 
account for such emergencies. Let our youngsters 
drop from exhaustion, and after ten hours' sleep they 
were fresh again, which is not true of their elders. 
The brigade of the Thirty-second which took over 
from the Third began attacking, in conjunction with 
the Twenty-eighth, at 2: lo in the afternoon of the 
30th. The Thirty-second, pressing on into the Grim- 
pettes Wood, was met by machine-gun fire from the 
Cierges Wood as well as in front. It attained a 
large portion of the Grimpettes Wood and a footing 
in the Cierges Wood, which is practically an offshoot 
of the big Meuniere Wood. Elements of both the 
Twenty-eighth and the Thirty-second reached the 
edge of the village of Cierges, which they found full 
of gas. By this time it was known that the Ger- 
mans were in exceedingly strong force, including 
fresh troops as well as countless machine guns and 
the batteries under cover of the Meuniere Wood. 
Indeed, there was evidence that the enemy meant to 
make a definite stand on the Ourcq. 

We withdrew our advanced units while we held 
off a counter-attack from the Germans on the right. 
That night the Germans made a rush in flank from 
the depths of the Meuniere Wood, which was out 
of our sector, against our troops who were in the 
small Grimpettes Wood. The truth was we were 
ahead of the division on our right and exposed. Our 
men in Grimpettes with bayonets fixed, in the sheer 



THE HEIGHTS OF THE OURCQ 395 

belligerent relief of dose contact after facing 
machine-gun fire, turned on the Germans, and, in the 
dense darkness of the woods, it was cold steel to a 
decision. There was little quarter given; there could 
be little quarter given, in such an affair of darting 
shadows which encountered each other in the midst 
of underbrush. One man might be disclosed to an- 
other at only a pace's distance; and between two 
men meeting it was a question of which made the 
first thrust. The hot panting shouts of the Ameri- 
cans were mixed with the outcries of Germans and 
with the breaking of twigs and the straining breaths 
of struggle. 

It was ugly, terrible, primitive, this hand-to-hand 
wrestling, which lasted for half an hour with our 
men forcing the Germans back and pursuing them 
as listeners knew by their eager calls, sometimes ut- 
tered in language which the chaplains would not 
approve; for the business of every American was to 
drive at a German and then another until there 
were no more Germans in sight except many dead 
and wounded. The German had had a lesson in 
night attacks against our troops in the woods. His 
forte is in other weapons than the bayonet; and, if 
he tries the bayonet, he should avoid lumber-jacks 
or vigorous young farmers from the Northwest. 

During the night of July 30th-3ist, the Thirty- 
second relieved the weary Twenty-eighth, which had 
been marched and counter-marched from the other 
side of the Marne, and had fought in a manner that 
entitled it to rank now as a veteran division. Thus 
the Thirty-second and the Forty-second on the left 
had the field alone, and, by this time, there was no 



396 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

discounting the nature of their task. Rising beyond 
the village of Cierges, of slight tactical importance 
itself, flanked by the depth of the Meuniere Wood, 
are a series of heights, with farm buildings that be- 
came the ramparts of defense, and with ravines and 
sunken roads and folds and swales and patches of 
screening woods — Pelger and Planchette and Jom- 
blets — culminating in Hill 230, which gives a view 
west and north and south for many miles. Such a 
position might have been chosen for a baronial castle 
ny a baron with numerous enemies. 

It is well not to forget that a machine gun has a 
range of over two miles. The Germans had installed 
on these heights at every available point machine 
guns which could sweep the roads with long-range 
fire and web with enfilade fire every step of advance. 
These guns were manned by the men who were 
there to fight to the death, reenforced by artillery 
and first-class troops. The Forty-second with its line 
bent toward the heights had its right flank under their 
fire; and it had had no cessation of fighting since it 
reached the Ourcq with the 4th Prussian Guards 
on its front. Its left flank was just east of Fere-en- 
Tardenois. German aeroplanes had added interest 
to its situation by flying low and raking the roads 
with machine-gun fire. It had taken Sergy and Sc- 
ringes with their machine-gun nests. Shall any one 
of the Forty-second ever forget the fighting in all 
that neighborhood where every regiment was en- 
gaged, New York, Ohio, Iowa and Alabama? Or 
Muercy farm, where our men swept past enfilade 
machine-gun fire through the wheat field because that 
was the only thing to do? Major McKenna, who 



THE HEIGHTS OF THE OURCQ 397 

commanded the battalion engaged, said that he would 
force the fighting and he did — and fell leading his 
men. 

It took three days to conquer Muercy Farm. We 
gained it finally by a rush through a small woods 
that ran close to its walls after a strong artillery 
preparation. With all its regiments across the 
Ourcq on the 27th, the Forty-second was ahead of 
schedule and while it was employed — with the aid 
of a battalion of the Fourth Division which had come 
up in reserve — in cleaning out machine-gun nests and 
establishing itself in defenses In front, It also went 
outside its sector in charges against the heights be- 
yond Cierges, taking Hill 212, assaulting the Bois 
Pelger twice and mixing with the Thirty-second in 
the common effort of striking at the sources of its 
casualties. Who was who at times may have been 
difficult to tell; but we were all in khaki, all with 
indomitable courage and natural aggressiveness, 
striving to conquer the heights that punished us with 
machine-gun fire. 

The Thirty-second was fresh, and in the impulse 
of Its first offensive effort. From the morning of 
July 31st It was not to stop driving against the 
heights until they were won. The village of Cierges 
was practically the center of Its line. This was 
promptly occupied, after It was free of gas, despite 
snipers, including one firing from the church tower 
rom under a Red Cross flag. Beyond It was Belle- 
' ue Farm, which the Germans had made the same 
kind of a fortress as Red Cross Farm. It stopped 
the attack in front, but some of our men, keeping 
cover in the ravines, pressed past its enfilade fire 



398 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

on up close to the crowning height of Hill 230, where 
they met machine-gun fire from Reddy Farm in 
front, while they had that from Bellevue Farm on 
their left rear and from the Meuniere Wood on their 
right rear. Hill 230 would have to wait a while. 
We were not out to commit suicide, which is the 
invitation of the German machine gunners to troops 
that are too daring. 

" Well, we know where you are! " as one of the 
men said, before these advanced parties slipped back 
under such cover as they could find to v/ait on the re- 
duction of Bellevue Farm; and the left flank, which 
had charged and taken machine guns in front in the 
Jomblets Wood to the east of the farm, were bidden 
to dig in and hold on for the same reason. Major 
General Haan was pushing hard — but he had to con- 
trol the " get there " spirit of his soldiers. He 
brought up more troops, re-formed his line and gave 
the word to his artillery. Every hour of July 31st 
and August ist, including the night, was one fraught 
with unremitting activity under continuous fire for the 
division. If we had no sleep we gave the German 
machine gunners none. If they kept us under fire we 
kept them under fire. Bellevue Farm was attacked 
from both sides. Snipers held down the machine-gun 
fire while small parties advanced under such cover as 
they could get. 

Our men formed up in a swale to move on the 
formidable Planchette Wood, and as they came out 
in the open, there was no faltering in face of the 
venomous rattle that came from the wood. They 
went along quietly, smoking cigarettes. When the 
wood could not be taken with direct assault we sent 



THE HEIGHTS OF THE OURCQ 399 

In small groups of snipers to fight duels with the 
German gunners. Everywhere it was a platoon 
sergeant's fight, as one of the officers said, the fight 
of the Red Indian scouting and creeping, of indi- 
vidual groups meeting emergencies. At night, we 
had to bring away our wounded quietly, following 
ravines and folds in the ground; for at the first 
sign of movement, ugly flashes would come out of 
the dari^ness speeding bullets toward any moving 
shadows; and overhead German aeroplanes were 
humming as they looked for targets for their bombs. 

On one of the summits after the fighting was over 
ten Americans were lying dead facing ten Germans. 
All the Americans had their bayonets fixed, and one 
with his bayonet pointed toward the enemy, was 
rigid in ^the very attitude of charging, his toe dug 
in the ground just as he had fallen in the assault. 
The ten had not killed each other man for man, 
and the result must have been due to the cross fire 
from machine-gun nests. There seemed no end of 
machine-gun positions; positions where the German 
dead lay beside their guns; and positions prepared 
already to receive guns when they were moved. 

Our unremitting pressure had not only broken the 
resistance, but it had made the Germans pay a bloody 
price. On the night of August ist we possessed 
Hill 230 and Planchette Wood, and our men of the 
Thirty-second, whose courage had had Its reward, 
were eating German rations, which in their hunger 
they found excellent; and most particularly welcome 
were the little bags of sugar which the Kaiser sup- 
, plies as incentive to bravery to the men who are 
supposed to stick to their machine guns to the death. 



XXXI 

TO THE VESLE 

German defense pivcs way and our pursuit begins again — The 
Rainbow replaced by the Fourth Division — The Thirty-second 
Division takes Fismes — What this fip,hting division did later 
at Juvigny — The Ponnsv Ivania National Cuiard Division along 
the Vesle — The baptism of fire of a " melting-pot " division — 
Our battles in the Marne salient proved the fighting quality 
of American troops — Our young officers — " Don't say Wop! " — 
Men who won the crosses — A month ahead of the programme. 

August 2nd was another great day. On this day 
Soissons was ours again, and Rheims made secure, 
and, all the way from Soissons to Rheims, the map 
marked a broad belt of advance of the Allied troops 
to the river Vesle. The chief of staff of the Forty- 
second Division going up at dawn to Bois Pelger, 
which his men had attacked to save themselves from 
its machine-gun blasts, found that it was deserted. 
Wherever he looked there was no sign of the enemy, 
and there was so sound of machine-gun fire. Only 
a little artillery fire broke the silence after those days 
and nights of unceasing combat. We haci cracked 
the shell again. The Germans were going. 

Now, the chief of staff of the Forty-second knew 
that his freshest troops were his engineers who were 
in front at Nesles. He went to them first. The men 
whose business it was to build bridges and dig 
trenches and put out barbed wire needed no urging 
to stretch their legs in pursuit. Then he went on 

400 



402 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

to his regimental commanders, whom he found al- 
ready preparing to advance. They had realized the 
situation at daybreak, and the men on outpost duty 
had, too, when no bullets from the enemy welcomed 
the dawn. It was as if a saw tearing at wood had 
suddenly cut through. 

The French, who had been prompt to grasp the 
situation, were ordering an attack along the whole 
line; and the Thirty-second was already advancing. 
Its objective for the day was Chamery, but it went 
on in ihe joyous chase with the French on its right 
and the Forty-second on its left until night found 
it at Drevigny. The regiments in reserve were 
brought up to the front line in order to press for- 
ward the next day. After some delay from machine- 
gun fire on the left, the advance became a march 
again, with the French cavalry patrols out in front 
adding to the interest of this delectable release of a 
maneuver in the open across an undefended area, 
after fighting machine-gun nests. 

The weary Forty-second, to whom pursuit had 
brought the stimulus of a draught of champagne, had 
given its reserve strength in its final rush of retalia- 
tory exhilaration. It yielded its place in line, when 
it reached Chartreves, to the Fourth Division, which 
had been in support. The Fourth had been passing 
through the usual preparatory period of having its 
detached units engaged under other commands. 
During the first week of the counter-offensive some 
of these had been fighting on the western side of 
the salient. The Forty-second, in common with the 
Third, had known the meaning of holding against 
the German offensive. Major General Menoher had 



TO THE VESLE 403 

fought his division in keeping with its reputation and 
spirit, the rivalry of its units welded into homo- 
geneous divisional efficiency. 

On the night of August 3rd, both the Thirty- 
second and the Fourth looked down upon the valley 
of the Vesle from the southern heights and across 
to the northern heights. The plan was to go on 
until resistance developed, but, when the Thirty- 
second started its advance the next morning, artillery 
fire from the other bank served prompt notice that 
the Germans were there in force; and progress down 
the slopes met with machine-gun fire. Information 
from prisoners brought word that the Germans had 
well-prepared positions across the Vesle, which was 
not surprising. There was not even a bow between 
Rheims and Soissons now. The ominous swelling 
of the Marne salient had been entirely reduced by 
the proper surgical operation for such ailments. 

The Fourth and Thirty-second were to have three 
very fierce days in the valley of the Vesle before they 
were firmly established on the bank, and before the 
Thirty-second doggedly, by repeated attacks, had 
fought its way into the good-sized town of Fismes, 
which was still held by the Germans with machine 
guns and snipers, the bridge at their back having 
been sufficiently destroyed to prevent wagons from 
passing, while leaving a section which permitted men 
to cross. Naturally, the Germans had all the ad- 
vantage of the situation at the start. They had pre- 
pared defenses, and their artillery covered the slopes 
which we must descend. When the Thirty-second 
had crowned its week's work by entering Fismes, 
and it had its outposts settled on the north side of 



404 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the narrow stream facing the Germans, it was re- 
lieved by the Twenty-eighth Division. 

A quiet sector in Alsace had proved sufficient train- 
ing for such soldiers as those of the Thirty-second 
to press the Issue with a merciless initiative against 
the strongest positions machine gunners could well 
occupy. Now the Thirty-second was spoken of as 
a combat division without the addition of the word 
temporary. After it had rested, it was to be sent 
to as wicked fighting as modern warfare provides 
when it was attached to General Mangin's army, 
northwest of Soissons, for the flanking movement 
in the direction of the Chemin des Dames. There, 
attacking through the ravines and gullies and over 
ridges and old trenches in this battle wrecked and 
wracked area, it took a thousand prisoners and the 
village of Juvigny. Elements of its infantry, dash- 
ing forward, v/ere unconscious in their earnestness 
of doing anything sensational when they shot down 
the horses of a German battery which was just 
limbering up for retreat, capturing the guns and the 
gunners who had survived their fire. Their leader 
•vas the same officer who, upon coming to the edge 
of a ravine, ran plump into a German officer. He 
held out his hand, good-naturedly, and the German 
officer shook it and surrendered with all of his men. 
There is still some resourcefulness in the United 
States even if we are out of the pioneering stage of 
our development. The Thirty-second had losses in 
keeping with its accomplishment at Juvigny; and, 
after Juvigny, it was as entitled to be called a vet- 
eran division as it was to be called a combat division. 

On August 4th, the Third Corps, under Major 



TO THE VESLE 405 

General Bullard, took command of our troops in the 
Vesle sector in order to gain such experience as the 
First Corps had gained earlier in the Marne counter- 
offensive. The Twenty-eighth Division at last had 
come into its own with Major General Muir in com- 
mand of a divisional sector. One of his gallant 
companies had charged across the broken bridge in 
the darkness and established itself in the little village 
of Fismette on the north bank. Isolated by day, well 
entrenched, it met machine-gun fire and sniping in 
kind; and, at night, it received reliefs and food across 
the broken bridge. For the Vesle was anything but 
quiet. Both sides were extremely sensitive to any 
threatened attacks, under remorseless nagging which 
was quite as hard to bear as bursts of machine-gun 
fire into a charge. There was a good deal of night 
bombing from the Germans on our side; and our 
aerodrome reports showed that there were plenty of 
bombs being dropped on the Germans. Our own 
artillery, we were sure, was giving full return to 
the German long-range shells which were falling on 
villages and roads as far back as Drevigny. It was 
most gratifying to see our motor-drawn 155's (long) 
moving into position, as it was one more sign of our 
c^rowing force. 

The Seventy-seventh Division, National Army 
iiom New York City, which we have seen training 
':;.t the British front, whence it went to Alsace, was 
>i-+)rought to the Vesle to relieve the Fourth Division. 
^" was the first national army division to go into a 
, iolent sector. Very different this from the languid 
shelling and the occasional trench raid and routine 
patrols in Alsace ! The melting-pot was put to the 



4o6 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

test of the fire that crucibles require — the old, old 
test of facing sudden death, of suffering pain from 
wounds and of submitting self to superior orders 
and to the will of destiny. 

Indeed, these men of all races and religions, who 
had known only city lodgings and city streets, were 
having hardships quite as stiff as any of the Pilgrim 
Fathers who landed on the poet's rock-bound coast, 
down there below the heights in that hell's kitchen 
of the Chateau Diable, fair mark for all kinds of 
projectiles, and in their little outposts across the river 
and along the railroad tracks, and in the woods and 
ravines where they had to wear their gas masks for 
ten and twelve hours on end. The approach by day 
to the valley, where they held their ground, required 
dodging from shell crater to shell crater against snip- 
ing rifle fire. Many of the soldiers of the Seventy- 
seventh were of the type which the Kaiser would not 
allow to stop over in his country on their way from 
Russia to America. His steamship companies might 
make dividends out of carrying them in the steerage, 
but he did not want them as residents of Germany 
where he was breeding warriors. They were now 
bound for Germany by another route. 

You could not expect a little man who had worked 
iq a factory and lived in a tenement on the East Side, 
when his mother and father had been narrow- 
chested before him, to have the physique of a Michi- 
gan lumber-jack or an Iowa farmer born of genera- 
jtions that had blown their lungs in fresh air. A 
\ national army company from the villages and the"* 
i^anches is bound to have more strength for carrying 
up trench mortars to the front line than one from 



TO THE VESLE 407 

mean streets, although, under the physical regime of 
/ the army, some of the East Siders had developed 
from puniness to robustness in a year's time. 

The spirit! Did they have that? This was the 
right ingredient for the melting-pot under machine- 
gun fire. They were proving that they had under 
merciless test; and that they had certain qualities of 
ready adaptability which go with city life. The 
stories about the comradeship formed between men 
who knew their morning baths and their clubs with 
men from the tenements are true. It was " Buddy " 
back and forth between bunkies, whatever their 
origin; they had learned to appreciate the man- 
quality in each other. 

Major General Duncan, commanding general of 
the Seventy-seventh, who had come across the At- 
lantic with the First Division as a colonel, had 
earned a star, and then two stars, in action. He 
was a proper leader for such men, with his white 
hair and ruddy face, his poise, his sound profes- 
sional ability, his comprehensive interest in all who 
served under him and his singular talent for develop- 
ing the best that was in subordinates. All the army 
was fond of Duncan, who had a knightliness of char- 
acter which we like to associate with soldiers for a 
good cause. The Seventy-seventh was fortunate to 
be under his direction in a critical stage of its experi- 
ence. After its long gruelling on the Vesle, it was 
to have the opportunity for attack and pursuit when 
the Germans retired from the river and to show, 
despite what it had endured, an offensive spirit and- 
a suppleness which justified the faith of a nation 
in the melting-pot. 



4o8 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

The entry of a national army division into the 
sector while it was still violent had been a fitting 
close to our operations in the salient where General 
Pershing had used all his immediately available 
trained divisions. Their conduct had justified his 
faith in them, and they had helped in the action 
which proved the correctness of his opinion that the 
salient would crack under a determined attack. 

Another phase of our army's preparation had 
passed. There was no need of any pessimist among 
us standing any longer in awe of the great German 
army. We had borne the severest pounding that the 
artillery of a German offensive could concentrate; we 
had seen the enemy break under our blows; we had 
known the supreme joy of pursuit over trenches and 
gun positions and villages and through woods, which 
had vomited their fire upon us, after they were silent 
and peaceful as the result of our attacks. The Ger- 
man knew now that when he met American troops 
he must expect unremitting pressure at close quarters, 
rind we had learned much by actual experience and 
from observing the French who fought thriftily at 
our side. "'"" " 

Every time that I went over the enemy's defensive 
positions I marveled how we were able to take them 
In face of machine-gun fire. When you are riding 
along a road consider that a machine gunner may be 
waiting in a bush for you at the turn, or, when you 
are walking across a field, consider that a machine 
gunner may be waiting behind a hedge or in a fox 
hole in the tall grass or a stand of wheat, and yo« 
will have an idea of the kind of fighting which we 
had all the way from the Marne to the Vesle. Our 



TO THE VESLE 409 

instinct, as I have said, was to charge the nests; to 
close in on them, which was usually the best way and 
the quickest of conquering them, not to mention 
the moral effect upon the enemy. The German de- 
pended upon his machine gunners to stay us longer 
than they did, and this left material in our hands 
and meant confusion to him. The French were less 
impatient than we were. Their veteran methods, 
the product of racial qualities as well as experience, 
were illuminating. 

" You see some Frenchmen in a village," as one 
of our officers said, " and, according to our ideas, 
as they sit about munching bread and smoking ciga- 
rettes, they don't seem to have much system. The 
next thing you know they are in the next village. 
They've got there. Of course, they know by instinct 
the terrain, the roads, the villages of their country — 
and they are on to Boche tricks." 

Our young officers from our training camps at 
home, many of them only boys, brought, in face of 
death, a mixture of gayety with their serious effort 
to apply all their lessons. With them and their pla-r 
toons and companies, who pressed close to the 
enemy, rested the burden of fighting. It was they 
who directed the moves of attack and the combat 
columns; they who crawled up in reconnaissance 
when the machine guns compelled a halt; they who 
directed the cunning patrols which slipped up ditches 
^or ravines or through the woods in the darkness for 
sudden onslaught; they who realized that they must 
never show fatigue or downheartedness. 
''- With a few exceptions none had known anything 
iof soldiering when we entered the war; they had not 



4IO AMERICA IN FRANCE 

een bred among soldiers or associated with soldiers. 



«lNot all were from the officers' training camps. An 
increasing number of privates were earning in action 
ihe privilege to go to the officers' school in France 
in order to study for commissions. The door of 
promotion was open to every officer and private and 
the cross was the reward of courage. Many paid 
the price for their gallantry. Every one of us in the 
army knew one of these, whose death was a personal 
blow ; but it was a greater blow to someone at home. 
Mothers of these fine, clean young men who fell in 
action may have a memory worth more than that of 
a liv^ing son whose parents or friends managed for 
him, or he managed for himself, a place at the rear 
— which rarely happened. When men return from 
the war, ask them where they served. 

If there is anything to take the snobbishness out 
of one It is the record of those days in the salient, 
when nobility appeared in quarters where it is not 
expected to appear by those whose lives in grooves 
separate them from their fellow-men. I have 
avoided mention of individual instances of courage, 
of cool initiative, of the wounded still fighting, of 
eomrade^Ip's loyalty tested by danger of sacrifice 
and generous fearless impulse, because of their uni- 
versality. 

" Don't say Wop! " as a soldier who was of sev- 
eral American generations exclaimed. " No! Wop 
don't go any more ! " an Irish-American joined in. 
" That's looking down on them. We're looking up 
to them, these days." 

Those little dark-skinned emigrants from Italy 
had shown the character which is the only kind that 



TO THE VESLE 411 

interests you in the man at your side under fire. " I 
gotta keep up," as I heard a little man, staggering 
from fatigue under his pack, say one day, when 
" keeping up " meant that he was moving into heavy 
shell fire. Again, " Sheeny " does not seem just the 
right word for a Jew who charges a machine-gun 
nest. There is an old idea that men fight best in 
the defense of their homes. I am not sure that they 
do not fight best for a principle far from home. Did 
any Czechs, or Poles, or Greeks want to serve in con- 
tingents of their own race? No. They wanted to 
be in the American army; and they saw this war as 
an opportunity to show by the blood-test that they 
were Americans. 

Along with the Smiths, the Davises, the Mac- 
Phersons, the O'Briens who won the crosses, we 
had, as an example. Private Digiacone who won his 
cross as one of two surviving defenders of four men 
who held off a German raid; Corporal Shumate, 
who, after his platoon had been practically de- 
stroyed, continued forward to his objective and re- 
mained all night under heavy fire; Corporal Grabin- 
ski, who led his machine-gun crew with extraordinary 
heroism, ever pressing forward against the enemy 
machine-gun positions until he was killed; Sergeant 
James Kochensparger, who gave an example of cour- 
age that was inspiration to the men of his command; 
Corporal Gustave Michalka, who, with two of his 
men, charged a machine gun which was annihilating 
his platoon, and killed the operators and captured 
the gun; Private Joseph Isaacs, who, although 
wounded in the head, crawled from within a hun- 
dred feet of the German line back to our line, a 



412 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

distance of a hundred and fifty yards, bringing a 
more severely wounded comrade on his back. 
, What was it that the Allies were saying late in 
, June and early July? If we could hold until 
August 1st, the arrival of America troops would 
make our defense secure. On August ist, we had 
conquered the heights of the Ourcq and were start- 
ing in pursuit of the Germans to the Vesle. Has 
there ever been such a transition of feeling as that 
which began on July i8th with the drive to Soissons? 
Stroke after stroke driving the enemy back! More 
""and more prisoners and guns ! That great German 
army was fighting in a muddling defensive. Accept 
ing the word of the German Staff that the withdrawal 
was according to plan — why, then it made a very 
poor business of the withdrawal. 

The thrill of entering Chateau-Thierry was only 
one of many during August for the man who had 
followed the war for four years, with first place, 
perhaps, in seeing the cathedral at Amiens practically 
unharmed and all that deserted city beyond the range 
of any German guns which were not in our hands, 
and the Canadians and Australians and the French 
driving the Germans before them toward Peronne 
and Ham. Where were those superficial observers 
who thought that the British army could not make 
another ofiensive, and who were asking in late July, 
*' Will the British do anything? Can they? " 

Our own joy in taking positions, which had blazed 

" death into our ranks, could hardly be as deep as the 

joy of British veterans who had regained fields which 

they had fought over again and again. The spirit 

that marched to the relief of Lucknow and stormed 



TO THE VESLE 413 

>uebec, the '* Up, Guards, and at 'em! " spirit, which 
lad carried the English tongue over the seas and 
into the wilderness of new lands, was across the 
Hindenburg line. July and August were great 
months for civilization. They saw old armies gal- 
vanized with fresh energy; and a new army prove 
itself. 



XXXII 



SAINT MIHIEL 

Our first field army — As big as a French group of armies — The 
chiefs of staff — How big we were, when the American army 
assembled in Lorraine — A mountain that we would have — 
Characteristics of the famous Saint Mihiel salient — An eyesore 
to the Allies — French troops under American command — The 
largest number of American troops in one battle in the history 
of the U. S. — Our officers venture a trial of skill with Luden- 
dorff — Careful and thorough preparation for our own battle — 
Moving up for the attack — A vast organization ready to go. 

General Pershing's wandering soldiers were com- 
ing home to him; and they were very glad to come. 
Whether training in Flanders or in Artois, or fight- 
ing in Champagne and in Picardy, they were always 
asking when they should join their own army. As 
they might not enjoy the privilege of the French 
and British soldiers of going on leave to their family 
homes, Lorraine became their army home. They 
wanted to be together in one family in their trans- 
planted United States in France, with its perma- 
nent American arrangements. 

All our divisions, which had assisted in reducing 
the Marne salient, were sent to Lorraine, where 
they found themselves in a world which was talking 
in terms of corps instead of divisions. Our first 
field army had just been organized. It was equiva- 
lent in size to some French army groups, while one 
of our corps was almost equivalent to a French army, 

414 



SAINT MIHIEL 415 

and one of our divisions almost equivalent to a 
French corps, this being another Instance of our 
tendency to do things on a big scale. 

Naturally, General Pershing was to command our 
First Army until he had organized the Second Army. 
The Chief of Staff of the First Army was one of the 
dreamers who sat at one of the little tables in our 
first headquarters in the Rue de Constantlne in Paris 
working out the million and two million men project. 
You will recollect that after the project was formed, 
he became occupied in preparing an organization In 
the full faith that the millions must come and would 
come before Germany was beaten. He studied the 
other armies, and he had time, too, while waiting 
for the millions, to do considerable thinking, which 
is one of the most Important ingredients in making 
plans for large bodies of men In action. The officer 
who had been the operations expert of the First Di- 
vision since Its arrival In France was called to G. H. 
Q. just before the Solssons drive, and he and an- 
other officer, who had been watching the operations 
of all our divisions, began working over maps and 
plans for our first army offensive. 

The choice of the chiefs of staff sections, the 
" G's," of the First Army, formed as favorite a 
theme of gossip In regular army circles as that in 
political circles concerning the cabinet " slate " of a 
President-elect. This did not particularly Interest 
the young second lieutenants and their doughboys, 
who knew that there was some kind of a managerial 
force which Issued orders while all they had to do 
was to obey orders; yet, It was a very deep concern to 
them and to their mothers and fathers, as upon 



4i6 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

these G's depended the wisdom of the orders and 
the consequent ratio of success to our casualties in 
any engagement. The big G's of the General Staff 
had long been training officers in the different 
branches and trying them out in the older divisions, 
with a view to selecting those most fit for binding 
our scattered divisions together in an army under 
our own responsible command. 

A chief of artillery, Major General Ernest Hinds, 
had been appointed in the early summer, and he had 
set about organizing his staff before he had much 
artillery, which was, of course, in keeping with Gen- 
eral Pershing's prevision in making ready to direct 
the use of material without loss of time when it 
arrived. All our guns were moving toward the 
Saint Mihiel sector, and all our aeroplanes, and all 
the tanks of the tank corps which had been months 
in drilling. All energy, all thought seemed to be 
directed toward Saint Mihiel. Yet, no one who went 
there said where he was going, and no one who re- 
turned from there said that he had seen anything 
unusual. We were having our first lesson in mili- 
tary secrecy. 

On the way to Toul from G. H. Q. you rode for 
hours through villages where you saw only American 
troops. Our original training area had been ex- 
panded over a vast region. The veteran divisions 
from the Marne salient, with the gaps in their ranks 
filled by replacements, were resting, according to the 
prescribed regime, which did not mean sitting in the 
doorway of their billets all day. They were drilling 
again and making ready for the part which the or- 
ganizers of the First Army and of the different 



*f 



SAINT MIHIEL 417 

corps were preparing for them. These old di- 
visions had lost many of their staff officers, and 
regiments and battalions had lost their commanders, 
who had gone to higher responsibilities in other or- 
ganizations. 

When officers met in the family reunion before Saint 
Mihiel they were almost too busy to exchange mutual 
congratulations upon their most recent promotions. 
Besides, promotions had lost their novelty. The 
mighty undertaking overwhelmed every other con- 
sideration. The real thrill was in the impressive 
assembling of men and material. One was reminded 
of the remark of Mr. Smith who attended the Smith 
family reunion. " I knew that there were a lot of 
Smiths," he said, " but I did not realize how many 
until I saw them together." 

Divisions and their transport, with their guns, 
ambulances, motor trucks, wagons, which had been 
streams in the French army, were flowing in a com- 
mon reservoir. The mighty throbbing impulse of 
the Service of Supply was felt running along the rail- 
roads from the ports to the railheads and on up to 
the front wherever a cartridge was fired or a soldier 
ate a piece of hard bread. Had we really grown 
this great? Had the Allied shipping been able to 
bring all this force, hurh'ah, mechanical and material, 
across the Atlantic in face of the submarine? This 
and more. We still had divisions with the British 
and the French, divisions in sectors in Alsace and in 
training and en route from the ports. 

The intensity of the night before our first entry 
into the trenches, of the night before our offensive at 
Cantigny, of the night before the drive to Soissons, 



41 8 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

was now that of an army. Immense numbers of men 
and guns alone would not bring success. We must 
have an organization equal to our undertaking. Gen- 
eral Pershing had expressed the character of the 
undertaking one day, in the previous March, when 
he was looking up at Mont Sec, which looked down 
with such lofty patronage on our men in their miry 
trenches in the lowlands. " We ought to have that 
mountain," he said. Indeed, he had long ago made 
up his mind that he would have it. As far back as 
July, 19 1 7, he had planned that the first offensive 
of the American army when it became an integral 
force should be against the Saint Mihiel salient. 

In the early days of the war that triangular dag- 
ger-like indentation in the Allied battle line irritated 
everyone who glanced at a map of the Western 
front. It seemed to be a military anachronism which 
could not long endure. In 19 15 the French made 
an attempt at its reduction, but finding the resistance 
very formidable in a period when France had to con- 
serve her man-power, the attack was not pressed to 
a decision. Thereafter the salient became an ac- 
cepted part of the line no more incomprehensible 
to the layman than many other features of the war, 
but a fact. 

The salient is broader than it looks on the 
map, which does not reveal the heights which form 
its walls. Five minutes' observation from Liou- 
ville, one of the forts of Toul, gives you an apprecia- 
tion of the character which even larger scale maps 
cannot contribute with equivalent force. Looking 
north and northeast are a series of ridges and high 
hills. The most conspicuous of these is the camel's 



SAINT MIHIEL 419 

hump of Mont Sec, and looking east, at their base, 
is a stretch of level country broken by the whitish 
patches of the ruins of villages and the sheen of small 
lakes and ponds and by clumps of woods. The Ger- 
mans had held the high ground; the French had held 
the low. Eastward, although out of sight, is Pont- 
a-Mousson on the Moselle river, in Allied posses- 
sion, which was often mentioned early in the war. 
From high ground in that neighborhood the city 
and fortress of Metz are visible. 

The town of Saint Mihiel itself is at a junction 
of roads and in the bend of the Meuse river which 
forms the point of the salient; and the Meuse runs 
on through Verdun, which is protected by the hills 
crowned by the forts whose mastery Germany sought 
in her onslaught in the spring of 19 16. From Doua- 
mont and Vaux you look out over the plains of the 
Woevre. Thus, the chain of French fortresses face 
Metz and the hills of German Lorraine across an 
intervening space on French territory which must be 
crossed before either adversary approaches the per- 
manent defenses of the other. Academic military 
casuists may enjoy themselves in the future in pon- 
dering on whether or not the German should not 
have concentrated on Verdun and Toul and the 
eastern frontier of France instead of going through 
Belgium. In that event, perhaps America would 
not have been in the war, and our interest in the 
salient would not be associated with the largest force 
-that had participated, up to that time, in a single 
action in all our history. 

In September, 1914, when the Germans were 
stopped in "the battle of Lorraine on their left flank, 



420 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

before Toul and Verdun and In the Argonne In their 
center, and by the battle of the Marne on their right, 
they fastened upon the natural ramparts, which form 
the Saint Mihiel, and held fast, having regard not for 
lines on flat maps but those on relief maps. The sali- 
ent enabled them to break the railroad line from Ver- 
dun to Commercy, Toul and Nancy; it supported any 
movement against Verdun; It was a threat In flank of 
any French offensive toward Lorraine, thus assisting 
In confining active operations to the line from Verdun 
to Flanders; and, finally, it placed German trenches 
In commanding positions which, despite the wedge 
form of the line, meant that the drain of casualties 
day by day ought to be in the German favor. 

General Pershing's plan of striking at the bases of 
he salient was simple, as the plans of all great opera- 
:ions are. Its distinction was In the boldness of the 
stroke by a new army, which some military leaders 
considered absolute folly. Under the observation of 
Mont Sec and other hills, we should have to storm 
strong defenses through three or four lines of barbed 
wire before we came into open country. We might 
break through the first line, we were told, but, even 
if we succeeded In taking the second, the third would 
ctop us; or. If we broke through the third we should 
find ourselves under the fire of German batteries 
directed from Mont Sec, while the terrain beyond 
the regular defenses favored machine-gun nests. 
Our losses would be staggering, even If we forced 
\he evacuation of the salient. 

We were to have the assistance of French artillery, 
aeroplanes and tanks, which were to serve under the 
direction of bur own chiefs of artillery, aviation and 



SAINT MiHIEL 421 

our tank service. The responsibility was ours; the 
whole operation, including all the French troops in 
line, was under command of General Pershing. With 
the repeated Allied blows in the offensive draining 
German reserves, the German Staff, facing the pos- 
sibility of having to shorten its line on the Western 
front, might not be expected to send in many divisions 
to make a desperate struggle to hold the salient. 
Yet, the fifty thousand German troops within the 
salient were a formidable force, if they were to make 
stubborn use of their defenses. 

Two American divisions, side by side, were the 
most that we had ever had under American com- 
mand in an active battle sector. Practically, all our 
fighting had been by divisions; and our divisions, 
with two exceptions in the Marne salient, had been 
alternated with French divisions. Our First and 
Third Corps, In their brief experiences in the Marne 
salient, had been under a French army commander. 
Now, the situation was reversed; now, we were di- 
recting French troops instead of having our troops 
directed by French generals; now, we had eight 
iVmerican divisions in line under our corps and army 
command in an operation more difficult than that of a 
straight frontal attack. 

Our paper organization had expanded with a 
healthy deliberation; but the troops which filled out 
the forms of organization in living practice had ar- 
rived In a flood. Many units, especially those which 
form the links of organization, had had no real bat- 
tle experience as units, let alone in coordination with 
other units. Their assembling into a whole was of 
itself a problem; the operation against the salient, 



422 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

simply as a tactical maneuver, was a serious enter- 
prise for a young army. We ought to have had more 
time for preparation; but, with winter approaching, 
when the Allies wished to make the most of the head- 
way which their offensives had gained, time was very 
valuable. Divisions must not be kept Idle. There 
must be action. 

We had a new phrase in our army lexicon, " Ad- 
vanced G. H. Q.," which followed General Pershing 
to the First Army. Where the chiefs of the big 
G's were formerly dealing with the details of di- 
visions they were now saying, " That Is an army 
matter." Those at army headquarters were say- 
ing, " That is a corps matter "; and those at corps 
headquarters were saying, " That is a division mat- 
ter." There are certain defined methods of organi- 
zation for large armies which are the result of the 
accumulated experience of previous wars and par- 
ticularly of this war. We followed them. We might 
consider, too, that the principle of throwing two 
hundred thousand men against a salient Is the same 
as throwing a thousand. 

The main thing was for no one to become hectic 
under the pressure of responsibility, but to take it 
calmly. You would have thought that the Staff of the 
Army and the staffs of the corps had been directing 
Immense operations all their lives. As they had been 
looking forward for a year to this army being 
formed, and gradually preparing for it, the fulfill- 
ment of anticipation hardly came as a surprise. One 
by one we had risen to occasions. We must rise to 
this, which is not saying, however cool every officer 
appeared, that, in the back of his head, there was 



SAINT MIHIEL 423 

not a good deal of apprehension which was the 
proper corrective for optimism. If we failed, many 
critics would be justified In their declaration that 
it was impossible for us to form an army staff which 
could efficiently direct a great army. 

The arguments and the pressure had been strong 
for us to place all our divisions under the direction 
of the Allied commanders to use as If they were 
French and British divisions, particularly at a time 
when every division counted in pressing the offen- 
sive against the weakening Germans. Why should 
these old European staffs believe us capable? 
Looked at in one sense, there was a magnificent 
audacity, on the part of the graduates from Leaven- 
worth, in thinking that they might successfully direct 
a new army of assembled divisions, which had never 
acted together, against the German Staff, which was 
directing forces coordinated by generations of train- 
ing and preparation and by four years of war. The 
chief of operations of our G. H. Q., who had never 
maneuvered ten thousand men except on paper, be- 
fore this war, was daring to meet Ludendorff on the 
chessboard of war; and he was not more overawed 
than the generals of the democratic army of the 
French Revolution were by the enormous prestige of 
the Austrian staffs. 

Another argument in favor of Infiltrating our di- 
visions into other armies was the inspiriting effect 
of the association upon Allied divisions, although 
this seemed to be rather labored, considering the way 
that the Allied divisions fought in France and in the 
Balkans and In Turkey In September. The supreme 
argument against infiltration was the one which I 



424 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

have mentioned at the outset of this chapter. Our 
soldiers wanted to be with their own army; they 
wanted to be under their own general. An army is 

^ supposed to be a pure autocracy where men obey 
orders and keep their opinions to themselves. So it 
is, and yet without any balloting system, it expresses 

N itself in the irresistible silent note of its spirit; and 
ythe sentiment of our soldiers required an integral 
force. 
'^ General Pershing had certainly not been timid in 
his choice of a test as to whether or not, after a 
year's study of the Allied staffs, v/e were capable of 
directing an army. We had the advantage of not 
becoming careless through staleness or through the 
conviction which goes with the confidence of experi- 
ence and long traditions. The graduates of all the 
schools in France which Major General McAndrew 
had organized, with their stiff curriculums in every 
branch of staff work and command, were now com- 
ing into their own. Without the schools we should 
have had only a handful of men who knew anything 
about large organization. Could they apply their 
theories in practice? Was what they had learned 
only theory? Hardly. They had taken their les- 
sons from notably efficient officers fresh from the 
front. 

Responsibility of a new and terrible kind, ambi- 
tion, patriotism and the magnetic influence of being 
a part of immense forces, all gave impetus to our 
industry. We were bound to neglect no details in 
the book. Any shortcomings would not be due to 
negligence. Every young lieutenant who played er- 
rand boy for a colonel; every reserve officer who 



SAINT MIHIEL 425 

directed traffic at a railhead or an ambulance section, 
as well as reserve officers who had been to the 
schools; every engineer, military policeman, surgeon, 
sanitary corps man, aviator and balloonist, was try- 
ing to keep everything he ought to do in mind and to 
do it exactly according to directions. Sometimes the 
directions were confusing; sometimes they did not 
work out. When they did not initiative came into 
play. Sleep did not matter; nothing mattered except 
to perform your ovv^n little part as an atomic cog 
of the First American Army which was about to go 
into action. 

The troops should not want for any assistance re- 
source could provide. Our map printing establish- 
ment had maps in prodigal abundance for the officers 
who were to lead their men over the top. Each 
platoon's part was carefully prescribed; each com- 
pany's, each battalion's, and so on up through the 
corps in studious detail. Everyone in his objective 
earnestness became subjective in the fear that he 
might be responsible for some vital mistake. Our 
casualties might be enormous. What if we had not 
enough ambulances? The Red Cross as well as the 
regular medical establishment was very intense. 
What if we should run short of ammunition? If the 
engineers failed to make roads for the artillery? If 
the aeroplanes failed in their part? If the tanks 
did not come up to expectations? 

The stage was being set for an immense spec- 
tacle. Guns by the hundred, yes by the thousands, 
of all calibers, each had to go to its place, and its 
part assigned. They must not be seen moving on the 
roads by day. No great concentration of traffic 



426 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

should be visible. Traffic casualties in motor trucks 
that had run off the roads into ditches were morning 
signs of the difficulty of working in the dark. The 
infantry, which were to go over the top, waited, of 
course, upon the setting of the stage and the form- 
ing up of all the supers, before they came on the 
scene massed in the darkness for the attack. The 
roads were theirs — they were masters of the world 
— as they left the cover of woods and villages, and 
in their shadowy columns with their steady tread, 
expressive of man-force in its organized, one- 
minded purpose, moving toward the front. The 
sight of them deepened everyone's sense of respon- 
sibility in his work with the thought of what the 
morrow might bring forth for them. 

Aside from the old divisions, the First, the Sec- 
ond and the Forty-second, we were to have in the 
attack a new regular division, the Fifth, and the 
Eighty-ninth and Ninetieth National Army divi- 
sions, with the Eighty-second, another National 
Army division which was to mark time at Pont-a- 
Mousson. The Twenty-sixth Division was by itself 
on the other side of the salient acting with French 
Colonials for a short objective. Our main thrust 
was to be from the southern side of the salient 
toward the town of Vigneulles-les-Hattonchattel, 
which lay midway on a line from the two sides which 
would eliminate the salient. The attack was set for 
5:30 on the morning of September 12th. When it 
began raining on the previous day, this was a poor 
augury with its promise of roads turned into mires. 
The Germans thought that we would call off the at- 
tack because of the rain; but General Pershing had 



SAINT MIHIEL 427 

no such thought. The result, with its surprise, was 
better perhaps than if we had had dry weather. 

We were ready, on the night of the nth, in all 
that plans and orders could accomplish, with noth- 
ing further to do except to await results. Those at 
corps and army headquarters who had made the 
plans might sleep while they had the opportunity. 
Work would begin again when they had the reports 
from the field and had to deal with the situation 
which these should develop. 

That waiting force of men, guns, transport sug- 
gested some mighty mechanical vertebrate whose 
parts had been assembled for its first effort in loco- 
motion. We knew that we could depend upon it to 
"go." The spirit of the troops assured this; but 
whether or not it would keep to the road or founder 
for lack of proper articulation, only the action could 
reveal. 



XXXIII 

WE TAKE THE SALIENT 

A thunderstorm of artillery breaks loose — Over the top at 5:35 — 
Vagaries of tanks — A world all American — Roads clogged by 
astounding mass of transport — German prisoners — The di- 
vision from Missouri and Kansas — " Like taking candy from 
children " — Germans surrender in crowds — The salient blotted 
out — Fifteen thousand prisoners and Wght casualties — An 
operation that worked out as planned — Belgians liberated — 
The gratitude of the French — General Pershing not unhappy. 

A RIDE through the night brought me, before dawn, 
to the top of a commanding hill overlooking the Toul 
sector in time for the artillery preparation for 
the Saint Mihiel attack, when all the guns, 
which had been nursed so solicitously into position, 
broke the clammy silence with their unorchestrated 
voices, and a man-made aurora-borealis shot out of 
the wall of darkness. What does one really see when 
an avalanche of sound and of shells is suddenly re- 
leased in a bombardment? As much as one sees of 
an electric storm without being behind the clouds 
where the storm is made. There were darts of flame 
in the foreground from nearby batteries, while the 
leaping, continuous flashes ran on clear to Pont-a- 
Mousson. All the world, inclosed under canopy of 
night, was aflame. Piercing tongues of lightning and 
broad flashes of lightning! Little lightnings of the 
75's lost in the mighty lightnings of the big calibers ! 
It was our challenge as an army to the enemy. 
428 



430 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

The labors and sacrifices of the people at home were 
concentrated In this inferno of accumulated prepara- 
tion. Our guns were speaking the power of the Mis- 
sissfppi's flow; of the heat of the deserts; of the coal 
and metals from our mines; of the throbbing life of 
our cities and towns and the long lines of railroad 
track from coast to coast; of the cotton fields and 
wheat fields — to support the flesh and blood of our 
men waiting in the front-line trenches to commence 
our first attack as an army. It was the thought of 
our men which made you pray that all the shells 
screaming over their heads would go straight to their 
targets; it was the thought of them that stilled the 
pulse in suspense. 

The minutes pass as the lightnings continue their 
terrlfic witchery. It Is five-thirty-five. The men 
have gone over the top. Moist and slow-breaking 
dawn revealed dark patches as woods, and white 
r^treaks became roads in the developing outline of 
landscape, while Mont Sec loomed out of the dis- 
tance across the valley as a promontory looms out 
of the mist at sea. 

There was little answering German shell fire, so 
far as you could see. If the German artillery were 
active It was directed against our Infantry which was 
out of sight. How was the battle going? Were we 
advancing in unbroken success, or were we struggling 
against barrages and machine-gun nests? Curiosity 
as to the result overwhelmed all other considerations. 
Corps headquarters would begin to have definite 
news of first results by eight o'clock. 

At the Fourth Corps, in command of Major Gen- 
eral DIckman, who had led the Third Division in Its 



WE TAKE THE SALIENT 431 

brilliant work on the Marne, one learned that we 
were everywhere through the first-hne defenses and 
advancing. There were no details in the brief re- 
ports which had been received. Military reports are 
not literary. All the corps wished to know, and this 
very definitely, was about the progress of each one 
in the chain of divisions on the corps front, and, if 
any one were held up, the nature of the opposition, 
in order to direct the action of the others. Although 
all information thus far indicated complete success, 
it was not the business of the Commanding General 
or the Chief of Staff, reading the message slips, to 
form any conclusions other than those vouchsafed by 
the facts. Affairs in the midst of the Corps' first 
battle seemed to be proceeding as smoothly as in 
any well-regulated business office in an active period. 

The wireless outside corps headquarters was 
bringing news; the telegraph keys and the telephone 
were bringing more news over the wires; the aero- 
planes were dropping message cylinders. Every- 
thing was quite according to the routine of a veteran 
corps, French or British. You had more bits of 
information from officers who came in to report. 
One concerned the tanks, which had been having a 
characteristically merry time, A few had been stuck 
in crossing No Man's Land; a few always are. The 
tank is a temperamental beast which has been slowly 
trained to routine; but he is a fiery dragon of wrath 
when loosed in the enemy's country. Tanks had 
been seen trundling about ahead of the infantry 
across roads, fields, trenches, ditches, looking for 
machine-gun nests which they might devour. 

But corps headquarters was well back of the 



432 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

front, in a stone-walled mausoleum, as one officer 
called it, built from a quarry, where its processes 
would not be interrupted by the enemy's fire; and, 
now that your human curiosity was satisfied, the. 
thing to do was to follow the troops. You rode 
forward into a world whose existence was no longer 
a military secret. From the moment that the artil- 
lery had loosed its thunders men need no longer deny 
any knowledge of the reason of their presence, or 
of that of the mobilized material for the offensive. 

All the transports, which had been moving by 
night, now moved forward by day, as the Germans 
were by this time quite aware of the fact that we 
were attacking the salient. A casual visitor who had 
been to other fronts might take all this trafiic for 
granted as reflective of the size of our nation. He 
lacked the early days of our expedition for his 
standard of comparison. It was in this same region 
where we had been given our first divisional sector. 
There was something enormously impressive in the 
revelation of growth as all the wheels that carried 
supplies for guns and men began turning. 

No French blue ran through this world except 
occasional French ofl!icers in a car or a truck which 
was serving French batteries, tanks or aerodromes. 
Otherwise, it was all khaki and American, with the 
attentive military police at the turns, the signs in 
English warning against " double-banking " and an- 
nouncing a " one-way road." It was American in 
the big ammunition trucks and the dispatch riders 
and all the detail of a great army In being. Look 
across country and every road was a solid line of 
American transport, halting and surging forward 



WE TAKE THE SALIENT 433 

and halting, in the effort to reach the infantry. The 
whole region from Pont-a-Mousson to Beaumont was 
webbed and plotted with activity. We had not 
enough horses, not enough motor trucks, not enough 
\ of anything, of course ; but the amount we did have 
f was astounding m its leviathan pressure toward the 
front. 

An automobile with the articulation of an eel 
would be a welcome innovation in threading such 
traffic. It was a triumph of locomotion to reach a 
division headquarters, which was that of Major 
General Wright, of the Eighty-ninth, where the scene 
was very different from the quiet corps head- 
quarters. In the drizzling rain, a line of German 
prisoners was being interrogated before being 
marched to the rear. Another group awaited their 
turn in the field; some others had been set to work. 
Automobiles, side-cars and motor cycles were parked 
in the mud in front of the dugout occupied by the 
division commander. Officers who came in to report, 
as one said, did not take much interest in the news 
that the Cubs had lost a game in the world's series, in 
view of the preoccupation of the Saint Mihiel series. 
They showed more emotion than the General and his 
staff, who were crowded in a gloomy recess, their 
dehght that of the intensity of the hound in pursuit, 
as they aimed to keep touch with the retreating 
enemy and make sure that the Eighty-ninth marched 
\as fast as any of the other divisions. 

Was this all there was to attacking the formidable 
Saint Mihiel salient? I had not seen a single shell 
burst yet, or any sign of the enemy's anger, except 
bombs that were dropped from the German aero- 



434 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

planes in the back area. Picking your way past the 
transport you came to the old German line, and, in 
No Man's Land, the absence of any of our dead, as 
far as you could see, was visual proof of how the 
day had gone. The engineers were doing their best 
to bridge over the trenches and to make a solid road 
across the porous soil, seeping in the rain, in order 
that the transport blocked at the rear might follow 
up our advance. American and German wounded 
came by on litters borne by German prisoners, and 
there were little detached groups of prisoners, all 
of whom were ready to smile ve,ry_j[)ropj.tiatIngly at 
the first sign of a smile from their captors — all except 
one typical, square-headed Prussian drill sergeant 
who looked very sour. His men had not fought, 
that was the truth of the matter. The end of his 
harsh military world had come for him. 

Looking far ahead you saw a little shell fire in 
the Thiaucourt Woods, which was the only sign of 
action. Down the slope. In the foreground, were the 
rusty fields of barbed wire of the second and third 
lines of defense which were meant to make the 
salient unconquerable. These stretched along the 
whole front of our attack. Only the " get there " 
spirit explained how our men had gone through such 
mazes, or around them. The road on the German, 
as well as our side, of the trench system had been a 
typically well-metaled French road, and our engi- 
neers were filling in the bad patches worn by rains 
in the course of long disuse on both sides, with 
earth. A brigade commander had just established 
his headquarters in an old German command post, 
and his was the same simple problem as that of the 



WE TAKE THE SALIENT 435 

division commander in pursuing the retreating enemy 
as fast as the legs of his men would carry them. 
Our surgeons, at a former German dressing station, 
sunk into the embankment of the road, had little to 
do. When a wounded American came in, they gave 
him another dressing and called in some passing 
German prisoners to carry him away on a litter. 

The prisoners were old and young, but not the 
poorest class of German troops. Hardly one I saw 
had any mud on his uniform, which was evidence 
that they had been taken from their dugouts with- 
out resistance. They looked as neat as if they were 
ready for inspection. Compared to the men of the 
Eighty-ninth from Missouri and Kansas, tanned, and 
hard, and showing the effects of the rain and the 
march and the mud, they seemed peculiarly ineffec- 
tive. If they had been taken by surprise so had their 
captors, who were keyed up for bloody effort in their 
first fight, and who found that all they had to do was 
to gather in all the Germans in sight. They could 
not quite understand how, after all they had read of 
what charging frontal positions meant, they should 
have had such an easy victory. 

" It was like taking candy away from children," 
as one of them said. " But I guess it won't always 
he like this. We had the jump on them this time." 

An American tank was stalled on the road, its 
captain seated on the embankment. He smiled, 
showing his white teeth. Had he been in it? Oh, 
yes. In as much as there was of It. His tank had 
run up to the mouth of dugouts and up to machine- 
iTun nests, ambling about. The chief worry of the 
Germans whom he had taken was lest he should not 



436 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

understand that they meant to surrender. They had 
waved vAilte handkerchiefs from the mouths of dug- 
outs before they put up their hands. One middle- 
aged German who was dug out of the bushes where 
he was hiding, when he was brought to the road and 
saw an American ofiicer standing in front of him, 
cringed and jumped to one side, trembhng, with a 
plea in his eyes. He Avas anything but the militant 
personality whom his officers had tried to create by 
'^;:elling him that Americans gave no quarter. 

German gunners, two miles back of the line, with 
no frerh shell holes about their positions, had not 
even taken the camouflage off their guns to fire into 
our advancing infantry, but had deliberately avoided 
action, apparently to assure their safety. This, taken 
with other incidents, which confirmed observation, 
indicated the reason for the slight resistance. There 
was no use of an observer going any further. It 
was not a battle. It was a field day for every divi- 
sion. Our troops did not require direction. All they 
"had to do, along the whole length of our line of 
[assault, was to keep on advancing to their objectives, 
[cleaning up any machine-gun nests on the way. 

Having learned that we were to make a great 
attack, it was said that the Germans, realizing that 
they could not hold against the ardor and force 
which they knew v/ou.ld characterize it, had been pre- 
paring to withdraw from the salient. Be that as it 
may, it does not interfere M'ith the significant results. 
The enemy had troops in line behind strong defenses, 
and he had artillery and machine guns, which were 
undoubtedlv supnosed to m.ake us pay a price for 
success. The die-hard spirit was not in this com- 



WE TAKE THE SALIENT 437 

mand. After our tremendous bombardment drove 
them to cover with its sudden burst of lightnings, and 
they saw our waves of infantry advancing under our 
barrages with irresistible vigor, the Germans, acting 
all together in the hard instinct of their machine 
training, with the few exceptions of some machine 
gunners who kept faith with the Kaiser's expecta- 
tion to give their lives for him, simply sought self- 
preservation. They preferred living as prisoners to 
dying for their Emperor in hopeless resistance. 

It would have been much easier to follow the 
troops on foot than to make one's way to the rear 
from the Eighty-ninth Division headquarters in a 
car. Moving this way and that, blocked on one road 
and then another, by the congestion of traffic, it took 
two hours to make a distance of ten miles. 

That night, General Pershing commanding the 
First Army, had only to give orders which would 
complete the reduction of the salient and establish 
our new line. It was a contest between the First and 
the Twenty-sixth, the two divisions which held the 
swamps of the Toul sector in the most hateful 
memory, as to which should first reach the town of 
Vigneulles-les-Hattonchattel, which was midway of 
the base of the sahent. Both drove ahead all night 
picking up more German prisoners on the way. The 
First must have been the most surprised of all the 
divisions by its easy victory. After Cantigny and 
Soissons, it knew the meaning of a big offensive and 
was prepared for a savage business. Those veterans 
wondered if they were dreaming or not, as they hur- 
ried along in the rear of those forbidding heights 
of the salient walls. 



438 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

The Twenty-sixth had a little advantage in the 
race and the advance party of one of its regiments 
set foot in Vigneulles before any of the patrols of 
the First, at dawn on the morning of September 
13th, and, with the forts of Verdun in sight on 
their left, they looked out on the promised land from 
the heights of the town, with the plain of the Woevre 
stretching before them in a wondrous panorama. 
Now the high ground was theirs and they tasted 
the revenge for all they had endured from Mont 
Sec. Any wandering Germans between Vigneulles 
and Saint Mihiel were trapped. Some, who had been 
on the march for twenty-four hours, would have 
escaped if they had started an hour earlier; but, in 
their fatigue, they did not much care what happened 
to them. 

The next day all the world, for the first time in 
four years, looked at the battle line of the Western 
front minus that irritating dagger thrust, which was 
also wiped out, along with the Marne salient, on the 
map in General Pershing's office at G. H. Q., where 
salients were particularly offensive. By the fruits 
of our victory we might judge its character. W^e had 
taken fifteen thousand prisoners, or three for every 
casualty of our own, and two hundred guns and much 
fight railway material. The railroad from Verdun 
to Commercy was freed, and the threat, from the 
tiank, against any operation in the direction of Metz 
■ a'nd German soil, had been removed. We had given 
^ bold, clean and dramatic answer to the question of 
whether or not we could make an army organization, 
and we had learned many lessons of experience which 
would be valuable in future actions. 



WE TAKE THE SALIENT 439 

The salient was won in such approved order that 
we called the action the " army maneuvers." The 
chronicler, who ought to give the event a great deal 
of space, finds that it went too smoothly to furnish 
any sensations. It is the emergencies of battle, the 
development of unexpected resistance, the ebb and 
flow of fierce attack, the strokes of prompt general- 
ship in the field, the resolute defense of a tactical 
point and the repeated charges to win a strong posi- 
tion, which furnish the thrills of war» Saint Mihiel 
was one of the few operations on record that worked 
out " as planned." 

Our rejoicing, however, could not equal that of the 
people who lived in the sahent. Among them were 
Belgians who had been brought from their homes 
to work behind the lines of the German army. Some 
Belgians were marching back behind a body of Ger- 
man prisoners when a Belgian officer saw them. 

" No! no! " he cried. " Not with the Germans! 
They are Belgians — Belgians! My people! " 

Consider their joy, which they shared with the 
residents who gathered in the streets of their vil- 
lages, at the sight of the men from overseas wKo" 
had driven the Germans away. It was almost too 
good to be true. At first, they were struck with 
wonder; and then French emotion let itself be felt 
in a way that convinced the Americans that it was not 
unpleasant to be " heroes." 

The inhabitants of Saint Mihiel, on their beloved 
Meuse, might look up at the trench-scarred ridges 
and hills, which give their town its picturesque situa- 
tion, now silent and free of the enemy. After living 
within the German lines, across the river from their 



440 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

own French army for four years, they might rebuild 
their broken bridges and their homes, earn money 
to replace their mirrors and clocks and the brass- 
work which the Germans had purloined, read their 
morning paper from Paris, speak their minds about 
the Kaiser, pass through streets where there were no 
German soldiers, walk abroad without being shelled, 
gather in their cafes and buy and sell as free citizens. 
Their own President of their own republic, whose 
home was in Saint Mihiel, came along with General 
Pershing and the French generals, to the celebration, 
where old and young gathered in honor of their 
deliverance. They were happy beyond expression, 
and they adored General Pershing and his soldiers 
as knights from a far country. General Pershing 
himself was not unhappy. He had that mountain 
which he had been wanting for a year; and a reward, 
which affected him far more deeply. In the joyous 
faces around him. 



XXXIV 



OUR ARGONNE BATTLE 

Popular expectations of the next move not realized — Offensive after 
offensive planned — The " sacred road " — Hard fighting ahead 
of us — Many new divisions in line — The woods, nature's 
camouflage of war — The eight divisions that began the Ar- 
gonne attack — A monstrous truck towing a balloon — A daring 
German aviator, and the result — Our command of the air — 
A division from Virginia travels a hard road — Over a mile 
of shell holes — The only point in the first stage of the Argonne 
battle that seriously arrested us — The open spaces where the 
infantry reign — A modern gentleman-at-arms — Up against 
machine-gun nests again — Draft men in a lull of the battle. 

Those who thought that the Americans would make 
the taking of the Saint Mihiel salient the first step 
of an immediate movement toward Metz were to 
have their surmises confounded by action in another 
quarter. It was not in Marshal Foch's plans, or 
General Pershing's conception, that our army should 
confine itself to some one established sector of attack. 
In the execution of the Marshal's swift offensive 
movements, striking with sudden violence here and 
there, we should be a mobile force within the reach 
of our line of communications, which had been origi- 
nally planned with a half-wheel of range from the 
hub of its main depots for just such contingencies. 
While our divisions which had won the salient were 
settling on their new front as a threat to the Germans 
in Lorraine, which at any time might develop into 

441 



442 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

a thrust, the first of the divisions for another con- 
centration was slipping undemonstratively away from 
its training area; and the big guns mounted on rail- 
way trucks and the rest of our heavy corps and army 
artillery — including the artillery which the French 
had loaned us for reducing the salient — having fin- 
ished their task for the time being in the Saint Mihiel 
sector, were moving by the roads which lead past 
Verdun. In this second offensive of our army as an 
army we were to use none of the troops which had 
been at Saint Mihiel. All the veteran divisions were 
missing from the line of assault, if we except the 
Fourth and the Seventy-seventh, whose terms of 
service had been brief compared to those of the 
First, Second, Third and Twenty-sixth and Forty- 
second. 

We were to attack a part of the old German line 
where no general offensive had been attempted since 
trench warfare began. Our right was to rest on the 
river Meuse and our left in the Argonne Forest, In 
junction with the French who were to advance at the 
same time on a front as far west as Auberive-sur- 
Sulppes. The British were to strike another blow 
toward Cambrai on the day after our blow. An 
Anglo-Belgian offensive in the Ypres salient was to 
follow theirs, which was, in turn, to be followed by 
another French offensive on the Aisne, while the 
French were to continue driving toward St. Quentln. 

General Pershing was occupying the room In the 
Mairle of a little town where Petain had directed 
the defense of Verdun and Nivelle the retaking of 
Fort Douaumont, and Toffre had consulted with his 
generals. The road that runs past the Mairle is 



OUR ARGONNE BATTLE 



443 



known as the " sacred road " — the road which saved 
Verdun. It had witnessed all of the grim movements 
of modern war that might congest any highway, the 



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passing of guns and troops going forward and am- 
munition without limit into that inferno of the hills, 
and the stream of ambulances for weeks on end, 
with their burdens of wounded who had fought under 



444 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

the Inspiration of Petain's saying: "They shall not 
pass! " 

Across the hall from General Pershing's office, 
the Chief of Staff of our First Army had his office, 
and, in the neighboring buildings, the rest of the 
staff which had organized the Saint Mihiel attack. 
Major General Liggett and the First Corps Staff, 
Major General Cameron and his Fifth Corps Staff, 
having left the divisions in the Saint Mihiel sector to 

.-■other commands, had come, together with Major 

. General Bullard and the Third Corps Staff, to apply 
their experience in the direction of a different set 
of divisions in a new operation from which we could 
not expect any such sensationally brilliant results 
as from Saint Mihiel. 

Only one circumstance, the retreat of the German 
■irmy from France, could ever lead us to speak of 
rhis action as a maneuver. It was to be a straight 

,, frontal attack. The German must resist our advance 
or endanger his line of communications to Cham- 

" ^agne and Picardy. The area from Verdun to Hol- 
land formed the mouth of a pocket, although a broad 
one, for all the German army on the soil of northern 

-^^rance. Steady pounding from Verdun to the Ar- 

y( gonne must be a part of any great plan which sought, 

whether in the hope of swift results or In the 

deliberate expectation of slow results, to force the 

German army back to German soil, or to draw re- 

^ enforcements from the Rhelms-Flanders line under 
its threat. We were striking toward the Iron fields 
Q,f Briey, toward Vouziers and the ganglia of rail 
connections of Mezleres. Every rod of depth which 
we should gain was of tactical importance. Every 



OUR ARGONNE BATTLE 445 

prisoner we took, every German casualty we caused, 

" meant so much pressure released from the British 
and the French. There was hard fighting ahead of 
-us. 

The time had come for this, as our part In the 
)i^and plan, and also the time to use our new divi- 
sions, which had been among the early arrivals In 
the late spring and summer rush of troops. All 

- had had some trench experience; all had their 
artillery; and they had had time to adapt them- 
selves, at least theoretically, to the staff organi- 
zation for the whole which had been formed. The 
Eightieth, or Blue Ridge Division, under Major 
GreneraT Cronkhlte, the Thirty-third, former Na- 
tional Guard of Illinois, under Major General Bell, 
and the Thirty-fifth, former National Guard from 
Missouri and Kansas, under Major General Peter 
E. Traub, succeeding Major General William M. 

'feWrlght, who had been transferred to the command 
of the Eighty-ninth, had been trained with the Brit- 

• (ish, as well as the Seventy-seventh. The others were 
the Thirty-seventh, former National Guard, under 
Major General Charles S. Farnsworth, from the 
Middle South, the Seventy-ninth, from Virginia and 
Maryland, under Major General Joseph E. Kuhn, 
and the Ninety-first, under Major General William 
H. Johnston, from the Pacific Northwest. Thus half 
of the divisions were of the draft; and only one was 
regular. 

Secrecy, in developing this operation, was par- 
ticularly essential, when we were going against 
strong defenses on a line which It was to the interest 
of the German army to defend as a part of its gen- 



446 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

eral defensive plan, although It could afford, in the 
conservation of its forces against the repeated blows 
which were shaking its organization, to yield the 
Saint Mihiel salient. We took only two weeks for 
the elaborate preparations which were necessary in 
an area where there had been no American troops 
before. It appeared that we must have moved all 
our transport from Saint Mihiel, but with the excep- 
tion of the army and corps troops, services and ar- 
tillery, these were a separate gathering of motor 
trucks and wagons in further demonstration of how 
the infant American army had grown. 

By day, as usual, the roads seemed normal to the 
aerial observer; and, by night, we were busy ants 
with the eyes of owls as we had been at Saint 
Mihiel. All the regular transport which fed the 
troops was kept well to the rear with them. Only 
ammunition and guns were moved forward in the 
course of forming the sinister plot against that old 
German front line within sight of the hills of Verdun. 
French and American military police and counter- 
espionage experts kept a sharp watch out for any 
suspicious persons. 

What should we have done without the woods? 
They are nature's camouflage of war. There were 
stretches of woods where our guns were literally in 
tiers. The building of the spur track for the giant 
fifteen-inch, on a railroad mounting, under a fringe 
of trees behind a bluff, alone represented much labor. 
'The woods also gave cover to all the infantry which 
had marched toward the front in the darkness. 
French infantry held the line in routine fashion 
thinly until the night bfefore the attack, when our 



OUR ARGONNE BATTLE 447 

eight divisions slipped into its place, almost auto- 
^ matically, without talking and without confusion. 

The number of guns thundering in the artillery 
preparation, including those of the French on our 
left, far exceeded the number that had been firing at 
Saint Mihiel. In the Mairie, again host of great 
plans and decisions, as early bulletins were read into 
the map after the attack was under way, they indi- 
cated that we had broken through the line at every 
point and were making steady progress. 

Although it was late in September and in north- 
ern France, the weather was kind to us. The sun 
was shining. One who went toward the front 
might use his glasses effectively, and he found 
less congestion of traffic than at Saint Mihiel, 
where the system of control had not been satis- 
factorily applied. It is General Pershing's method, 
when something goes wrong, to concentrate on the 
>»iult until it is remedied, and the results of this 
.ystem were accordingly evident, although there will 
never be enough roads in any offensive to bring up 
transport and guns rapidly enough to satisfy the 
demands of an advancing army, which wants every 
gun and motor truck close at its heels. 

When a monstrous motor truck was holding up 
traffic in a village street, those who were* about to 
complain desisted as they saw that it carried a reel 
from which a taut wire ran heavenward to an ob- 
servation balloon that the truck was towing as a boy 
tows a kite. It was not a good day for balloons, 
which are fair, large targets. A daring German avi- 
ator descending from a cloud, and successfully run- 
ning the gamut of puffs of shell bursts and the rattle 



448 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

of machine-gun fire from the anti-aircraft service — 
which is not difficult when he makes a dash with his 
purpose definitely in mind, considering the aggressive 
and praiseworthy fashion in which we were pressing 
our balloons close to the front to keep touch Vvith the 
movement of our troops — gave the audience of trans- 
port drivers, troops in reserve and all others within 
view of his exploit two thrills while I was passing. 
Everybody looked up and nobody looked ahead, 
when one and then a second of these huge inflated 
forms, softly tugging at their wire and looking like 
elephants with padded ears and trunks curled up 
under their chins, burst into flames, after the ob- 
server had started his slow descent swinging in para- 
bolas with the wind that gave even the spectator a 
sense of sea-sickness. 

" The thing is to jump when you see the Boche 
is going to get your balloon," as a soldier said. 
" There's no use of jumping after your house is o 
fire." 

The German might make raids, but the command 
of the air was with us. He did not persist in com- 
bat. New troops which had seen the swift, hawk- 
like flight of the German aviator toward his fat and 
helpless prey — he was brought down by one of our 
own planes before he reached his own lines — were 
also seeing maneuvers of aerial combat with the 
marvelous rises and glides and turns, and the " fall- 
ing leaf," in transcendent curiosity which never 
wanes for any observer until the decision comes, 
either in the retreat of a combatant or his death. 

It happened that I was following the Sevdnty- 
ninth Division, and by following it I could realize 



OUR ARGONNE BATTLE 449 

the nature of the obstacles all the divisions had over- 
come. The sector here had been on the edges of the 
battle of Verdun, No Man's Land, and the area on 
the other side of the trenches for a depth of a mile, 
had been under long and furious bombardment. Shell 
craters were as thick as holes in a sieve. In the mist 
of dawn, when the soldier could not see his way 
clearly, he had to climb down into a crater or go 
around it. In either instance, his feet might slip on 
the wet weeds which fringed the crater, or the earth 
at the edge of the crater might give way. 

If you are a golfer, consider taking a walk over 
a stretch of a mile in and out of deep golf traps 
whose walls have the consistence of an overhanging 
soft bank of a stream after a rain, and you have an 
idea of the ground over which the men of all our 
divisions had to charge, carrying their rifles, packs 
and rations. The enemy had plentiful barbed wire; 
but, with this expanse of shell craters. It would seem 
that this was hardly required when he might bring 
artillery fire and machine-gun fire to bear on the at- 
tacking infantry. The men of all the divisions, new 
to ^such hard traveling, were not delayed In their 
schedule by this indescribable stretch of shell-torn 
earth. There was evidence of carelessness in the 
upkeep of their trenches on the part of the Germans, 

"^either showing their confidence that no attack would 
ever come in this direction or deterioration In appli- 
cation and morale. 

From the high ground of No Man's Land you had 

. a broad sweep of vision. Not far away were the 
famous Mort Homme and Hill 304, which were in 
the communiques in the days when the fate of the 



450 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

war seemed to hang on their possession. The patches 
of dark weeds, speckHng the bare earth of their 
slopes, which had been churned by shells until no 
sod remained, made them appear the more desolate 
in their silence, looking down on our young army 
which was carrying forward the banner of the cause 
of the French dead mixed with their soil. On our 
right, protected by the Meuse and patrols across the 
Meuse, the Eightieth had swept everything before it. 
The highway at your feet ran toward the town 
of Montfaucon, perched on a hill and flanked by 
wooded ridges, with the remains of its church in 
broken columns against the sky-line — a very formi- 
dable position which the Germans had made theirs 
in September, 19 14, when their initiative left them a 
choice in defenses. A year ago its taking would 
have been considered practicable only after a long 
artillery preparation. In the new warfare of move- 
ment we were to include it in a day's objective; a 
strange thing, there in the sight of Mort Homme for 
which, in a bloody wrangle under unceasing shell fire, 
the Germans vainly fought in many actions. It was 
rumored that our troops were already in Mont- 
faugon. If we were, the fact that no shells were 
bursting there indicated that the Germans were not 
firing on us or we were not attacking, or else we held 
one part of the town and the enemy the other. One 
may form varying hypotheses of what is happening 
at a distance. The engineers, who, by dint of 
amazing industry, had already made a passable road 
— improving again on our Saint Mihiel offensive — 
through the sea of shell craters, were preparing the 
way for bringing up men and guns which would make 



OUR ARGONNE BATTLE 451 

sure that Montfaugon became ours. It was the only 
point of the first stage of the Argonne battle that 
seriously arrested us in gaining our objectives. 

In going forward, we passed by a machine bat- 
talion which had been halted on a turn of the road 
awaiting orders, and, beyond that, not even the fool 
and his automobile had attempted to go; for there 
are always officers who are disinclined to use the 
means of locomotion which carry forward the brave 
infantry whom the roads serve, and these gentlemen 
bring up big cars toward the front to the embarrass- 
ment of traffic. You had come to that familiar 
region in an army's advance beyond the guns and the 
transport, reserved by the interdiction of the enemy's 
fire to the infantry, where you may walk as freely as 
shells or bullets permit. The open spaces are yours. 
Death and courage reign over them. 

Wounded men and occasional prisoners were com- 
ing across the fields. I shall not soon forget one 
of these wounded. The surgeon, in dressing the 
puncture from a bullet, had removed his blouse which 
hung over one shoulder, showing the white flesh of 
the other shoulder and his chest in contrast with the 
circle of tan of his neck. Tall and spare, with his 
helmet on his arm, the afternoon sun turned his hair 
to bronze and threw his definitely chiseled and really 
handsome features into a glowing silhouette. His 
back was a straight line, and his walk which had a 
great dignity, in keeping with the scene and the bare 
shoulder and breast, the drooping blouse and the 
helmet on his arm, suggested the very aristocracy of 
democracy as a fit, militant answer to the glitter in 
the eyes of some redoubtable Prussian officer. If 



452 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

there were ever a picture of the crusader overseas 
it was this soldier, all unconscious of the symbolism, 
which we call art, in his appearance. You knew that 
he feared nothing that walked the earth. The pity 
is that Sargent could not I" ave painted him as he 
was under the title of a " Modern gentleman-at- 
arms." 

Now and then a spent bullet passed with its dying 
song. There were rattling bursts of machine-gun 
fire ahead and on the flanks. We were up against 
the nests again. Quite distinctly through the glasses 
you might see our men advancing up the slope toward 
the woods to the left of Montfaucon and how, when 
they came to the sky-line, as the machine guns began 
rattling, they turned to the right, keeping under 
cover of the crest in their enveloping movement; and 
on the slopes, to the east of Montfaucon, there were 
other figures feeling their way forward. The town 
was now hidden from view in the valley by a hill in 
front of it; and in a sunken road on the slope of 
the hill we found the men of a platoon concealed. 
They had started over the crest to be met with 
machine-gun fire from both flanks as well as from the 
town — a cross-fire hurricane. They had brought 
away their wounded and left their dead, and they 
were waiting under orders until the flanks had done 
their work in " pinching out " Montfaucon, With 
the machine bullets cracking over it the crest of 
the hill did not invite prolonged observation; and the 
tired soldiers of the platoon showed a passing curi- 
osity when some of their number dug out three Ger- 
.mans who were hiding in some bushes. 

This scene, typical of this kind of open fighting, 



OUR ARGONNE BATTLE 453 

with the land untenanted except by the movement of 
the attacking soldiers, had a fresh interest because the 
soldiers were draft men. You were certain that you 
had only to say the word and that platoon would 
have charged over the crest through the hurricane 
and kept on going. After all the intensive theory of 
the training camps at home, they were having les- 
sons that day in General Pershing's school in France 
where instruction is very practical. In returning to 
the rear you might hear the talk and the chaff of 
machine gunners at the bend In the road. 

" They say the British are going after them to- 
day, too ! Hitting 'em all along the line ! That's 
the way. The Boche don't know which way to look 
for the next blow." 

" What do you know about it? You've only been 
in the army six months ! " 

" Some people wouldn't learn much if they were 
in it for a hundred years." 

" Did you read that in the Stars and Stripes? '' 

" Wonder when we're going to move. We've got 
a lot of ammunition here from the Springfield Ar- 
senal to deliver to the Boche." 

At Army Headquarters you might learn that we 
had eight thousand prisoners and less than that num- 
ber of casualties, and that the French had also broken 
through at all points, taking the strong positions 
which they had faced for four years such as the 
Tahure and the Mesnil hills. That night there was a 
heavy rain, which was a blessing to the German, as it 
turned the new roads over the porous No Man's 
Land into mires for our artillery, while he was bring- 
ing up reinforcements along his established roads 



454 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

to make the stand he must make in this sector. Our 
offensive spirit was not to hesitate In accepting the 
challenge. 

How the men of the Seventy-seventh won their 
way through the maze of old works In the Argonne 
Forest, where I saw them cheery if soaking, and all 
the details of the operations of the divisions in the 
/Argonne fighting, along with the action of the 
Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth divisions of the Sec- 
ond Corps with the British, against the HIndenburg 
line, must wait upon further Information and be- 
come a part of a future narrative. 



XXXV 



AVIATION 

Aviation fallacies — Not as easy to make an aeroplane as an auto- 
mobile — We suffer from the affliction of seeing " big " — 
Debates and delays — Abundance of would-be aviators — The 
Liberty Motor apparently a myth — Pessimists of various 
shades — The Liberty Motor a success — ^What " mastery of 
the air" means — Air prospects for 1919. 

Man being more pliable than metal and his parts 
coordinated into the most adaptable of machines, 
we were to have soldiers in the trenches before we 
had artillery, machine guns, tanks and aeroplanes 
and other mechanical equipment ready for their sup- 
port. In the summer of 19 17, the people at home 
were thinking more of winning the war through the 
conquest of the air than through the raw recruits in 
our training camps. The conception of great flocks 
of aeroplanes dropping bombs on the enemy's roads, 
depots and troops called to public imagination with 
all the transcendency of everything associated with 
flight 

We appropriated a hundred million dollars for 
aviation. Our genius in standardization and in quan- 
tity production, which had developed our immense 
output In automobiles, we proposed to apply to aero- 
planes. They were the means of breaking the stale- 
mate on the Western front, the short cut to victory, 

455 



4S6 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

when It must take a long time to organize a great 
army. The submarine and tonnage limitations might 
never permit us to transport the army to Europe, 
even after it was prepared, but once we were turn- 
ing out aeroplanes by the thousands, an enormous 
agency of destruction, requiring a small personnel 
and little shipping, would be more effective than 
scores of divisions. 

The pioneers of our expedition in France know- 
ing that aeroplanes, important as they were, could 
be only one part of any military force, in which the 
man with the fixed bayonet is the final factor in 
gaining and holding ground, were justly apprehen- 
sive lest the concentration of public attention on an 
aerial programme should divert us from the essen- 
tial preparations, particularly troops and shipping. 
We knew, too, that of all our dreams that of the 
air would be slowest of fulfillment. For three years 
tiie most driving kind of necessity, which was ever 
the mother of invention, had had at its command the 
most skilled artisans and experts In Europe in the 
rapid Improvement of aeroplane motors, while the 
changes in material and practice of aviation had been 
startling in their rapidity. No nation, however enter- 
prising, which had not been in the war, could possibly 
approximate the accumulated skill and experience of 
the new branch, whose secrets had been rigidly kept, 
except after a long period of training and prepa- 
ration. 

Of course, the heart of aviation is the motor, and 
its building, not to mention the building of the plane 
itself, is a most delicate business. The natural life 
of a plane, particularly of the motor, is astonishingly 



AVIATION 457 

I brief. A machine which requires weeks to build and 
{weeks of trying out may be lost in its first flight. 

This call for aerial supremacy was not new. It 
was most potent from the infantry whose morale was 
peculiarly sensitive to the inevitably capricious fluc- 
tuations of the aerial support which it received. 
Other publics had also been urgent for a great pro- 
gramme. The cry for thousands of aeroplanes to 
bombard the Rhine towns, yes to bombard Berlin, 
was heard in England, without thought that Berlin 
was out of range and that in reaching the capitals 
and great cities of the Allies, the Germans, with 
aerodromes on Belgian and French territory, had 
only short flights to their objectives. To the layman, 
it seemed as easy to make an aeroplane as an auto- 
mobile, when, as an aviator remarked, the law of 
gravity had not yet been abolished. 

The news reports from America in the summer 
and fall of 19 17, exploiting for the Allied publics 
our own aerial preparations as something near ac- 
complishment, were somewhat embarrassing to our 
pioneers of the Rue de Constantine, who knew the 
obstacles in the way of accomplishment. While the 
hundred-million-dollar fund held people under the 
spell of its prodigality, a most energetic officer was 
on the Jump in and out of our headquarters in Paris 
in his effort to start an aerial programme in France. 
He had as elaborate blue prints as any of the en- 
gineers of the S. O. S., which were of the same bold 
spirit. We heard of him flying over Verdun one day, 
and in Flanders the next, and the next down on the 
(fields at Issoudun, where we were to build an aviation 
city. The very spirit of flight was in him; and he 



458 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

seemed to be propelled by the dynamic force of an 
aeroplane motor. 

Other officers of aviation, who ranked him, ar- 
rived from the States, and they had the same volatile, 
hurrying characteristics. Aviation was the branch 
d' elite, which moved in a soaring and technical world 
of its own, mystifying to outsiders, who held it in 
the awe which is associated with the romance of the 
" ace," who travels at one hundred and fifty miles 
^n hour as he engages his adversary ten thousand 
feet above the earth, as compared with the mortal 
who advances by arduously pulling first one foot 
and then the other out of the mud of communication 
'' trenches. 

Our aviation band established great offices in 
Paris, where everybody was working under furious 
pressure and cars waited at the door, and a stranger 
felt something of the awkwardness of the man who 
finds that he must have mistaken his street and 
number when he is ushered in among the guests of 
a dinner party to which he was not invited. When 
you looked over the blue prints at that busy aviation 
headquarters it was not quite good form to ask 
-V How many planes have you?" although the ques- 
tion might bring the frank answer, " We have noth- 
ing but hopes, promises, money and energy." As 
well inquire how many Browning machine guns had 
arrived. 

In no branch did that American characteristic of 
seeing " big " in the period of conception suffer more 
from the affliction of the period when accomplish- 
ment was impatiently expected. We were preparing 
on paper, at leasts to receive, to assemble and to fly 



AVIATION 459 

the Liberty planes, for one thing; and for another, 
which was more to the point, we were trying to pre- 
pare with something more substantial than paper, for 
a sufficient aerial squadron to support our divisions 
when they should go into the trenches. If we had 
no planes of our own make we should buy them from 
the Allies. This really meant, at first sight, only 
supplying personnel for French, British or Italian 
planes, without increasing the number of planes in 
the air, but it was the only way to bring a force 
of our own into being as the nucleus for further 
development. 

We sought the best and latest types, of course. 
This involved debates, subject to the rapid improve- 
ments which superseded the type which was best one 
month with another type the next. If I were to be- 
come technical, at the expense of generalization, my 
task would have only begun with the study of the 
sheafs of cablegrams to and from Washington, in 
which the details about one motor took as much 
space as the requisition of enough material to build 
a regulating station. 

At least, we should not want for personnel. Ap- 
parently, all the American ambulanciers in France 
were bent upon becoming aviators. Every senior 
officer in the army knows how numerous are his 
young friends who think that they are particularly 
suited to become fliers. At home, we had the choice 
of hundreds of thousands of youths who were con- 
vinced that the air was their natural element when 
they looked skyward after a hard day's drill in the 
infantry camps. It is never necessary to draft men 
into aviation. The call is that of a knighthood rid- 



46o AMERICA IN FRANCE 

ing the clouds on your own steed, with your own 
inclination your guide, and with death coming cleanly 
In the very exhilaration of immortal flight in the 
heavens. 

You rise in princely isolation from the aerodrome 
after your machine is made ready by your attendants. 
When you return they run out in the field to take 
charge of it, while you go to your bath and a good 
meal. All the world regards you as the romantic type 
of war. It is quite different from being a lieutenant 
of infantry, who must see that his platoon does not 
suffer too much from " cooties," keep up the spirits 
of his men in the course of infinite drudgery of de- 
tail, charge machine-gun nests, lie out all night in 
damp woods, hug reeking ditches for cover under 
gas and high explosives, face death in unclean and 
unromantic forms and take his " rest " out of the 
line In the chilly room of a village house, perhaps 
next door to a pig-sty. 

The Allies hospitably received our cadets into 
their schools until we had our own schools, where we 
used older types of Allied planes for training. We 
had fliers in Italy as well as with the French and 
British, and we waited for the delivery of Allied 
planes which had been ordered. The Itahan defeat 
on the Isonzo, the collapse of Russia and all the 
accompanying strain on the Allied armies, meant that 
-promises, which are ever subject In war to its vicissi- 
tudes, could not be kept, while all the news from 
home led the cynical to exclaim when the penetrating 
cold of winter was in their marrow: " There's a lot 
of talk — but what's coming of It? " 

The prospects for the realization of the great 



AVIATION 461 

aeriai programme were not encouraging. Not only 
were the Liberty motors not appearing, but the 
gossip of the dark-blue pessimists said that they were 
a complete failure, while the light-blue pessimists, 
being more cheerful, said that they would be ready 
after the war. What could we expect? both declared 
in one voice. According to report, we had sopho- 
morlcally called some experts together and directed 
them to assemble the best parts of other motors and 
make a perfect motor. Did not these enthusiasts 
know that all machines were the result of long ex- 
periments? You could not produce a motor from 
blue print forms. To tell the truth, the Liberty 
motor became pretty nearly a joke with the Expedi- 
tionary Forces. Meanwhile, the Germans, driven 
to their utmost efforts, with no Russian front to look 
after, were producing aeroplanes at a rate which 
was as disturbing as their concentrations of divisions 
for their spring offensive. Their hope of a decision 
included overwhelming forces in the air, as well as 
on the earth, In action before either our aeroplanes 
or troops arrived in large numbers. 

Pessimism in this branch, as in every other, eased 
the minds of our workers, who never paused in their 
unremitting industry. The school at Issoudun had 
come Into being and other schools also. Those vet- 
eran fliers of the Lafayette Escadrille, who had had 
an esprit de corps of their own, with sentimental 
attachment to their old associations yielding to pa- 
triotic desire, had become a part of the American 
aviation force. Their experience, under the leader- 
ship of Raoul Lufbery, was of great service, when 
all the long preparation and anticipation had its 



462 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

first practical expression in aerodromes behind our 
own Toul sector, from which Americans were flying 
in machines bought from the Allies in liaison with 
our infantry in as professional a manner as the 
French aviators. In command in the field was that 
strenuous pioneer of the early days, who was later 
to become the chief of aviation of our First Army; 
while Major General Mason M. Patrick, with his 
main office at Tours, had become the Chief of the 
organization which was to expand with a rapidity 
during the summer in keeping with all the other 
parts of our army in France. 

When the first Liberty motor was received in the 
spring of 191 8, the news spread fast through the 
whole army. Never had any single bit of mechanism 
assumed such importance in the world unless it was 
the first plane Wilbur Wright brought to Europe or 
the first wireless apparatus. How was the child 
v^'hich had been so long in horning? Was it bow- 
legged and cross-eyed ? Did it have scrofula and hip 
disease? After all the months of exploitation what 
sort of product had the hundred-million-dollar pro- 
gramme brought forth? We were prepared to be 
critical; our faith had become attenuated. Accord- 
mgly, the reports that you heard by the wayside were 
not encouraging. The dark blues, depending upon 
hearsay, said that, barring some twenty or thirty 
faults, the Liberty was all right, while the light blues 
reduced the number of faults to ten or fifteen in 
order to keep up their reputation as cheerful 
prophets. 

Happily, the pessimists were now as wrong as the 
optimists had been a year before when they were 



AVIATION 463 

to hide the Rhine from the sun with the sweep of 
our flotillas. The Liberty was used for the first time 
by our air forces in the Marne battle. It had faults, 
to be remedied, as every motor has, but it was de- 
clared an undoubted success for the purpose for 
which it was designed. 

There had never been any intention on the part 
of its sponsors that it would be used in the single- 
seater, fighting plane, but the object in its creation 
was to produce a standardized motor of one type for 
two-seated observation planes and for day and night 
bombing planes. Its speed was such, nevertheless, 
that the experts said that it could run away from 
practically any German single-seater in the air in the 
fall of 19 1 8. 

We were to continue to depend upon the devel- 
oped types of the Allies for combat and pursuit. In 
turn, we were to supply them with the Liberties for 
observation and bombing. This was the plan, from 
the start, in coordinating Allied aircraft production, 
which, after many vicissitudes, and after delays 
which need not be mentioned here, had its fulfill- 
ment. The British and French and Italian avia- 
tion services, after the exhibition of the Liberty's 
eiJiciency, were eager for every one that we could 
make. 

In the Saint Mihiel and the Argonne operations, 
the number of our planes was in keeping with the 
manifestation of our power in guns. If not in troops, 
as the army family assembled, while the fact that 
we had paxily to depend upon French planes was 
a grain significant of the truth of the first sentence of 
this chapter. The frequent passing of the bull's-eye 



464 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

with a white center, painted on the under side of the 
lower wings, which meant that the plane was Ameri- 
can, was a delight to the eyes of hundreds of thou- 
sands of men, and the identification of the Liberties 
among our aerial forces one of the new diver- 
sions of everybody at the front and at the rear. 

-- Once the stream of output was started from home 
the thing was to keep it ever increasing until 
our preponderance in the air was overwhelming. 
" Mastery of the air " is a common phrase. There 
has never been any such thing as complete mastery 
of the air, if by this ft is meant that the enemy 
aviators may not pass over an imaginary line in the 
air drawn over the battle line. At any time that 
either side has a definite object in crossing into enemy 
territory this can be accomplished by the sudden rush 
of a concentration of planes, in which the observer 
is protected by fighting planes. We were strorig 
>enough in the air, in the autumn of 19 18, to keep 
the German over his own lines as a rule, but not to ' 
prevent his reconnaissances or, of course, night 
bombing. A patrol of a hundred thousand aero- 
planes would hardly accomplish this on the long 
Western front. 

Early in his offensive of 19 18, the German had as 
many planes as the Allies, if not more; and when he 
used them over our lines he came in force to gain 

\ his ends. Otherwise, he remained at home. Fight- 
ing for fighting's sake, although it is spectacular and 
makes " aces," may be bad tactics. One day, when 

' our aviators saw that a German plane, under convoy 
of fighting planes, evidently carried a photographic 
apparatus, they did the right thing by concentrating 



AVIATION 465 

"Successfully on the destruction of the recording eye 
that would take home a picture of our dispositions. 
German aviation has been Intensely practical; and 
the Allied aim in the autumn of 19 18 was the 
same. 

The principal development of the year's aerial 
campaign had been in the value of such concentra-- 
tions; In the use of machine guns from aeroplanes 
flying low against infantry and transport which, on 
occasion, had forced generals to leave their cars and 
dodge around trees and rocks to escape the wheeling 
pursuit of an aviator; and also in the Increase of 
bombing. A hundred and fifty pound bomb is just 
as destructive as a hundred and fifty pound shell, 
^he ruins of some towns, which were back of the 
lines out of the reach of shell fire, were evidence 
enough that aerial bombing was now a serious factor. 
The big British Handley-Page machines had worked 
havoc on German communications, and our Liberty 
motors were meant for such work. Thus the great 
aerial offensive which was widely advertised upon 
our entry Into the war was another prospect which 
the Germans had to face along with the certainty 
that in the spring of 19 19, the Allies would have 
double the number of aeroplanes the Germans could' 
pbsslbly produce. 

Should anyone question that our aviators would 
be equal to their task? It seems Idle to dwell on the 
point. Our ardor in the air, as on the earth, was In 
contrast with the weariness of the other armies which 
had fought for four years. They had drawn on their 
reserves of youth. We had the pick of our fresh 
reserves. Our talent for flying was a part with our 



466 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

baseball and football and national characteristics. 
Our aviators, who had the luck to be among the first 
to fly in France, were urged on to exploits by the 
very pressure of the long waiting list of ambitious 
aspirants. 



XXXVI 

THE GREAT PROJECT REALIZED 

Vast growth of our plant in France — Ferrying of soldiers across 
the Atlantic made systematic — New troops in France met on 
every side by American foresight — Pooling of Allied resources 
— We are everywhere in France — France prospering in war- 
time — Effect of America in France on the French and the 
British — The Y. M. C. A. — Incalculable improvement of army 
conditions over Spanish-American war days — Good care of our 
soldiers — Chaplains of different faiths — Our debt to General 
Pershing — Final and complete victory in sight. 

All the effort which links the weeks and months 
together makes the Rue de Constantine in Paris 
seem very far away. As we look backward to those 
cramped headquarters, which held our promise of 
practical aid to the Allies, we better understand 
what must have been the thoughts in those days of 
the Allied statesmen and generals who concealed 
their apprehensions as they placed their hope in us. 
A year later, we had immense hotels as our offices for 
the mere incidental business of the rear of our organi- 
zation which must be conducted in Paris, and all their 
activity, with their American telephones and card- 
index systems, seemed a commonplace of develop- 
ment from the plans that had their origin in the Rue 
de Constantine. 

No one observer could any longer compass our 
progress unless he traveled in an aeroplane and his 

467 



468 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

eyes could see through the roofs of buildings and 
into the hearts and brains of men, while his mind 
correlated observations and information which he 
could express with a genius worthy of his subject. 
The S. O, S. had grown prodigiously through the 
spring and summer months, with tonnage striving 
to keep pace with increased demands. Old regulat- 
ing stations had doubled in size; new ones and new 
depots were being built. Long lines of quays were 
finished; the time of " turn around " of shipping had 
been reduced until it was largely in keeping with the 
expectations of an improving organization and the 
installation of labor-saving devices. 
l-^ Our navy blue had become as common in the 
'■ports as our khaki in inland towns. Ships brought 
us supplies through the Straits of Gibraltar as well 
as to the western ports of France. We spoke to one 
another over our own cables under the seas to England 
as well as over the wires which ran across country on 
. >he poles we had set. We had written clearly and 
^"^ infinite detail upon Mr. Baker's sheet of white 
^ paper. We had kept on overflowing from province 
o province until the outposts of our extending world 
'were looking out on the Mediterranean as well as on 
the Swiss border. 

The soldiers of a division, from the time that they 
were put on the train at their home camps, east, west, 
north or south, now moved with something of the 
facility of a passenger who checked his baggage from 
Chicago through to London by fast trains and steam- 
ers in the old days. They went on board ship where 
a system was established as the result of months 
of experience; they approached a port in France, 



THE GREAT PROJECT REALIZED 469 

under a convoy of destroyers which also knew their 
part from experience, and, arriving in the port, they 
found that they were in the presence of American 
docks, lighters and cranes and American officers and 
mechanics and stevedores. They were disembarked 
as promptly as they had been embarked; and at every 
point, after they landed, someone was on hand to 
tell the commanders where to go and what to do, 
without any further worry on their part until they 
were in a billeting area, where they had to be ac- 
climatized after the close quarters of their voyage, 
and their programme of training had been issued to 
them. 

If freight piled up on quays, if cars crowded sid- 
ings the driving word "Must!" was one which^^ 
would allow no peace in the time of war to those 
responsible for delay until the difficulty was over- 
come. The pooling of resources, British, French, 
Italian and American, had ceased to be a theory of' 
conferences and had become a practical m.atter for 
governing bodies. The great storage warehouses 
for sl^ells and explosives or for machine guns were 
none too large. Shells and explosives were arriving 
in huge quantities. At the front, you heard the 
urgent calls for the Browning machine gun, one of 
our efforts at " the best " which had been long in 
materializing, but it had the verdict of approval of 
those judges who face the enemy. 

Our big hospital trains, which had been ready 
when hard fighting began, as they bore their burdens 
of sick and wounded to the great hospitals, which 
had also been ready, were a touching and appealing 
proof of the wisdom of the S. O. S. project to the 



470 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

French population. We had settled Into the life of 
the country, we had crowded the towns of central 
and southern France with our offices as well as the 
villages of eastern France with the billeting of our 
soldiers. We were everywhere in France, as I have 
said, and always busy, drilling, building, planning, 
forwarding supplies, organizing, cutting lumber and 
wood from the forests, repairing railroads and roll- 
ing stock and laying new telegraph lines. 

With the British army and ours, France had on 
her own soil more able-bodied men in her support 
than in her own army. She had seen the energy of 
our distant new land, known to her people through 
photographs, hearsay and news dispatches, reflective 
of our sensational and bizarre doings rather than our 
reality, develop under her eyes; and our character, 
associated with summer tourists sometimes raucous 
and boastful on a holiday, as intense, restlessly in- 
dustrious and determined. She had seen us as 
we are when we are at work at home, which 
is the only true way of seeing any nation. We had 
seen the French also at home and at work, when 
their supposed volatility changed to grim persistence 
In face of discouragement, and we had seen the 
British In their most gloriously stubborn moments. 
We had seen bo^th when the sight of our battalions 
rallied their hopes against, the German offensives; 
and, then, in the supreme happiness — the happiness 
of a man who thinks that he must be In a dream and 
puts out his hand questloningly to feel of reality — 
of driving the foe beyond the old trench line toward 
the frontier of Germany. 

America, which had accumulated money in the 



THE GREAT PROJECT REALIZED 471 

first three years of the war, set the flow of gold, 
which we had received from France, and particu- 
larly from England, for their purchases in our mar- 
kets, back to France in the sums which our soldiers 
spent and our army spent for supplies. France was 
winning, and France prospered after her long period 
of economic strain. With another two years of war, 
the land without gold mines, which had become the 
world's battle ground, would become the world's 
banker of gold. Europe, which had formerly re- 
garded us as money grubbers, which had spoken of 
America as the land of the Almighty Dollar, saw us 
disregarding money, submitting to heavy taxes, a 
people of sentiment offering our lives, including men 
with names that were German and Hungarian, for 
the principle that brought us into the war. 

To the French, who are not a traveled people, we 
brought some of the effects of travel; to the islanders 
of England we joined with the Canadians, Austra- 
lians and New Zealanders in bringing the wide, gen- 
erous vistas of continents across the salty wisdom 
of the seas. The educational process was mutual. 
We learned the meaning of intensive civilization 
with its traditions and half-tones and its skill in mak- 
ing much of little,- which we may apply when we re- 
turn home. The narrow-minded and the profiteer 
found us foolishly extravagant, but the sounder peo- 
ple saw us as generous, bustling, impulsive and genu- 
ine, if we were matter-of-fact, which is compliment 
enough. Neither the French nor the British, unless 
it were a class — that class of parasites of money in 
time of peace, and blood and money on the body 
politic in time of war — expected us to bear their 



472 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

burdens. On their part, there was no thought of 
resting on their arms while we charged. The Allies 
went into the great counter-offensive of 191 8 with 
the spirit and courage of youth regained, unafraid 
of the cost in lives. 

Each one of the atoms of the Expeditionary Force 
was so preoccupied with his work that only time 
will make him realize to the full the wonder of our 
pilgrimage and of all that we have wrought in 
France. Be it at General Headquarters, or in the 
offices, the camps, the stations and the ports of the 
S. O. S., or with our troops in their training and in 
their battles, the romance of our activity on the 
background where we labored would sometimes occur 
to tired men, and the thought of being even the 
smallest factor in one of the great movements of 
history would bring fresh strength to weary mind 
and body to meet the day's problems. 

America in France was America at its best, the 
best of our men and women. I am thinking of the 
women of the auxiliary associations. They had their 
jealousies and their grievances, but these were gradu- 
ally submerged in a common purpose as responsibility 
and elimination worked their results. There is the 
example of a certain Y. M. C. A. woman, which is 
illuminating if not strictly characteristic. When she 
first came to France it was easy to see that she had 
lived in a little local world in which she thought well 
of herself and a good deal about herself. Her time 
had been given to trivial things which, in her orbit, 
assumed grave importance. Servants did every- 
thing for her except to breathe and complain. By 
nature, I should say that she was what is called cat- 



THE GREAT PROJECT REALIZED 473 

tish; but a few weeks of selling cigarettes and choco- 
late to the soldiers and of answering their simple 
boyish questions had transformed her into a cheerful, 
objective being. She had been receiving a primary 
education in the humanities at the age of thirty in 
the school of Mr, Carter, that remarkable man, 
who had been the pioneer organizer of the Y. M. 
C. A. in the trying early days, and with a soldierly 
zeal and endurance continued on through the later 
days of its widespread, invaluable and difficult serv- 
ice. The process which wrought the change in her 
had been going on among European women for three 
years. It would have been unfortunate, in our 
preparation for the future, to have missed this course 
of training in self-sacrifice. 

It was a privilege, not a duty, to be in France for 
all except the trained soldiers and a few specialists, 
whatever they paid for the experience. Those who 
served at home served no less well, and they deserve 
even more praise as a reward for what they missed. 
Each day had its reminder that it was the other 
" over there " which gave us our life blood. The 
causes of our accomplishment go further back than 
our entry into the war. They are not alone in the 
Declaration of Independence, or in laws, or political 
platforms, but in that modern movement two or 
three decades old; for, such as a nation's character is 
in its men and women in time of peace, so it is under 
the acid test of war. 

To all the colleges and schools and to all their 
teachers; to every man and woman who held to the 
ethics of service in his occupation, whether laborer 
or millionaire; to those leaders who strove for bet- 



474 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

ter government, commercial honesty and improved 
commercial organization; to the pioneers and the 
workers in trying to make understanding and worthy 
citizens of the lowly of Europe who came to our 
doors, whether Jew or Gentile, brown-skinned from 
the Mediterranean or Viking blond from the North 
Sea; to that popular sentiment, which never casts re- 
flection on any man's origin or asks his caste; to all 
Americans with their faces in the light before the 
war, as well as to the regular officers, who worked 
hard and truly at their profession and held cleanly 
to its best traditions, we owe that revelation of 
America in France which should make it unnecessary 
in the future for the traveler to explain to foreigners 
the meaning and aim of all that was brewing in the 
melting-pot which is called the United States, neigh- 
bor of gallant Canada, along a frontier which has 
no forts. 

When one recalls Spanish-American war days, and 
he thinks of what might have happened to us in this 
war, he must pay another tribute to that modern 
movement in the men whom it brought to leadership 
and to a direction of policy, which, at the same time 
that it left an expert's task to expert, gave us an in- 
fluence in the world which we may use in keeping 
with our ideals. The supreme tribute is to the man 
v/ho fights; to the soldier who, after the war, would 
hold all the future in his hands. The insurance 
system ought to save his dependents from a pension 
system and himself from the political activity of 
veterans' associations, which vote in a block, in dis- 
regard of the strict views of the duties of citizenship. 

Mothers, sisters and sweethearts always wanted to 



THE GREAT PROJECT REALIZED 475 

know how the men they loved were cared for in 
France. Three thousand miles are three thousand 
miles when the soldier is away from home. The dis- 
tance as I have mentioned removed the sense of per- 
sonal touch that British, French and Italian relatives 
have with their kindred fighting across the Channel, 
or in another province of their own country; and this 
distance meant submarine dangers, a long line of 
communications for our supplies, and our men being 
crowded upon transports which disappeared over the 
horizon on a long absence, perhaps never to return. 
Mothers might be sure that sons in France never 
wanted for food, good substantial American food, 
thanks to the S. O. S. They might be equally 
sure that there were good nurses, good surgeons 
and good hospitals for the sick and wounded. If, 
to the French, soldiering in their own country, our 
arrangements seemed luxurious, why, it was only 
right that they should be for men who were en- 
during the hardships and risks of battle three thou- 
sand miles from home. For there were hardships 
in face of the enemy which might not be glossed 
over. Such is war, and especially in a war where 
all the power and resource of modern destruction 
were directed against human flesh. It was a man's 
work being a soldier in France. There was disci- 
pline, too; and it was good for us that we should 
have it. 

When he was not in the battle line, many a son 
was< living a far more regular and healthier life 
than at home; his means of entertainment were 
more wholesome in that army world than they were 
in many instances at home. When he returned more 



476 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

than one mother would exclaim to her boy: " How 
strong and well you look!" All that the funds 
which the other " over there " supplied were being 
used by the auxiliary associations, the Red Cross, the 
Y. M. C. A. and the K. of C. to make him feel at 
home — in conjunction with an army which took the 
tired man at Blois, issued him a new suit of clothing 
throughout and told him he had only to rest until 
his number was called. He had a better club around 
at the " Y " hut, where he saw the " movies " — 
where all of us " movie fans " went when we had the 
time — and where he could read the paper and see 
the Sunday supplements, than he had in many in- 
stances in his own village; and there he associated, 
as he did in the ranks, on an equal footing with the 
millionaires who won attention by enlisting as pri- 
vates. A millionaire counted as one private, no 
more and no less, in the A. E. F., with a chance to 
be promoted corporal if he were proved efficient, and 
without having his name appear in the Stars and 
Stripes, which did not carry a " What Society is 
Doing " column. 

We thank those men in khaki whose rank was in 
the silver cross or the emblem of an older faith, that 
they wore under Bishop Brent. They brought the 
human ethics of their calling at its best. It seemed 
to me, instead of dogmatic instruction, to serve in 
France; and, under fire, they^were cool exemplars of 
" the blood of the martyr is the seed of the church. "- 
It was good to see clergyman and priest working 
under a rabbi or a Salvation Army chaplain, all in 
the one purpose which the war has made supreme. 
We thank the men and the women, and particularly 



THE GREAT PROJECT REALIZED 477 

the women, from the home stage who did the circuit 
of the huts, bringing us the latest hits across the 
submarine zone. They had their reward in appre- 
ciative audiences which formed a laughing and clap- 
ping sea of khaki, from the boys who sat cross- 
legged at the edge of the platform to those crowding 
in at the rear door; and we are grateful, too, to the 
officers who tried to accomplish more rapid delivery 
of the tons of letters from home. 

Here was a problem to break any organizer's 
reputation. When a division was transferred from 
billets in Champagne to the Saint Mihiel sector, 
where the regiment was sent into action, and after 
action to Alsace, with all the changes of station sub- 
ject to orders that are given on short notice, as the 
result of the sudden requirements of battle, it could 
hardly be expected that a letter for Captain Smith or 
Private Jones of the Three Hundredth Regiment, 
which arrived in France in the course of the rapid 
movement, would be delivered him in the front line 
under a barrage, or even awaiting him at his destina- 
tion, or at the dressing station if he were wounded. 
War is not a settled postal route, and we had three 
hundred thousand soldiers a month arriving in 
France and divisions continually in transit. But the 
mail service kept improving, and everything else kept 
improving as the millions which had been hurriedly 
gathered became more and more organized. 

The final tribute, the tribute which one reserves to 
accompany that to the soldier in his courage and his 
philosophy, goes to the stalwart leader who found 
the strength for his task in the inspiration of its 
magnitude and of all the influences of our democracy 



478 AMERICA IN FRANCE 

which I have mentioned. Otherwise, no human sys- 
tem could have borne the strain which was his. An 
army requires an autocrat. We needed a man in 
France who was a combination of iron will, broad 
views, the ability of a great commander and the 
human impulses which we like, and the man ap- 
peared. First of all a soldier, he was more than a 
soldier in his comprehension of the requirements for 
forming new soldiers into an efficient military ma- 
chine. He was sent to Europe to make war; and 
he prepared to make war in no uncertain manner. 
He had imagination and the force of conviction to 
make his visions come into being, whether it was 
the training of combat divisions, the forming of a 
staff, or the establishment of schools, or the plan of 
the S. O. S. which strong influences on the European 
side of the Atlantic opposed until time had demon- 
strated its wisdom. 

Inquiry ever stands at the roadside of accomplish- 
ment. Captious observers who agreed that he had 
proved himself an organizer might doubt if the 
soldier from the Mexican border was equal to the 
command of an immense force in modern action. 
He confounded such vagrant skepticism in a single 
action. Unaffected by the plaudits for Saint Mihiel, 
in characteristic prevision, with the task finished, he 
took up the next in the direction of his young army 
which must be developed and hardened out of fresh 
divisions rushed across the Atlantic on packed trans- 
ports until it represented the full power of the 
nation. 

The autumn of 191 8 saw the Germans still on 
French soil. We might look forward to hard fight- 



THE GREAT PROJECT REALIZED 479 

ing and to paying the cost In blood, which we must 
be prepared to pay, before we drove the German 
army toward the Rhine and final defeat on German 
soil, should the remaining German man-power still 
be capable of desperate resistance. With the mighty 
machinery of supply now formed, with the immense 
forces of aeroplanes, of tanks and artillery back of 
our growing army being assembled during the 
winter, supported by a united people who were 
guided by the inspiration of a cause whose irre- 
sistible strength was penetrating into the mind of a 
baffled foe was written clear for all to read — the 
complete victory which civilization required. 

We came to France without consideration of any 
gain, which all men might not share, and with rev- 
erent appreciation of how bravely the Allies had 
fought for four years for the principles which we 
had had at stake. In the light of that thought we 
did our building. It was an unconquerable thought; 
one of the greatest world thoughts of all time. 



THE END 



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